Uchibi Sasuke
by Laryna6
Summary: Crackfic, AU. The Third Hokage granted Uchiha Itachi's request to spare the Uchiha children, only to realize too late that they were all horrible devil children. Literally. Which may be why Naruto fits right in with the rest of the little monsters Sasuke's too busy raising to brood.
1. Prologue

_This was originally posted to a forum as kind of an experiment. Normally, as a straight woman, I write what I like, and obviously my idea of fanservice is hot guys. Since I was trying to write for an audience, I did some stuff to imitate the site's sense of humor and obsession with certain bits of fat. Ah, men. Since I don't know if I'll be able to continue the plot there was going to be, especially when I have so many fics to finish, I'm posting it here as a series of crack slices-of-life in the 'verse. _

_Future Okami crossover._

_Shiroi no Naga, Naga the White Serpent, is the title of Naga from the Slayers OVAs. Yeah. Incidently, Lina's mage title is "Lina the Pink," which may explain her homicidal tendencies…_

* * *

The two people that Uchiha Sasuke hated most in the world were Uchiha Itachi, for obvious reasons, and a distant relative named Uchiha Ryuzaki.

He had probably met Ryuzaki before the massacre, since he had lived in the compound, but he hadn't even made enough of an impression for Sasuke to remember his name. No, the reason he hated Ryuzaki and all his despicable kind was because of the day a few weeks after the massacre when he had finally managed to get the scum's daughter Shinobu to tell him why she had such horrible screaming nightmares and didn't deal with them by crawling into or under his bed for protection the way all the others did.

For one blinding, rage-filled instant, he had been _glad _Itachi killed every single person older than him in the clan. Because that included Uchiha Ryuzaki, and he might even have _died screaming the way scum like that deserved_.

Ever since that day, the types of people Sasuke hated most were traitors and perverts.

And _everyone _wanted to get their filthy hands on the Uchiha orphans, and that filth Danzo especially kept _eyeing _them. Sasuke always had them line up and count off after he left the compound, just in case he'd tried to steal one again.

People kept cooing over the poor little dears and giving them candy, and Uchiha Mikoto had made sure her son knew what happened to little boys who went home with strangers with candy. They got their eyes ripped out.

But there was something even more horrible than that.

Sasuke hated the blood-soaked compound. But it had walls, and he could keep the others away from the people who wanted to make the children think they were nice and ask to be adopted by them. He watched the nurses and guards the Hokage sent _very _closely, to the point his training suffered, and after the third one turned out to be working for some group on the side he barred all non-family members from the clan grounds and told the Hokage that as clan head he was demanding the Anbu stay outside just in case any of them were peeping toms like the one in the dog mask who kept reading what Sasuke _knew _was porn.

Sasuke hated Itachi more than anything for killing everyone and sticking him with eighteen kids from six to six months. He had to get stronger, to protect them both from Itachi and the village.

But between paperwork, cooking, patrolling, tutoring, repairing the damage from their tantrums (no, he was not their mother), there was just not enough time in the day.

He only had two hands and was born the wrong gender and the wrong clan to master Eyes In The Back Of The Head no Jutsu, the ultimate skill of mothers and Hyuuga.

And part of the bargain was that he had to act as clan head if he was going to claim he was capable of looking after them all, and that included taxes. Which involved math.

Between stress, sleep deprivation, and percentages the young man called 'Uchibi Sasuke' behind his back might have gone off the deep end even sooner than his canon counterpart if it weren't for one thing.

Uzumaki Naruto.

* * *

As a general rule Sasuke neither knew nor cared about the names of his classmates. Only his early training enabled him to make it in before the bell rang, and he was out as soon as it rang again so he could round up all the others (the academy made a good day care) and do the shopping on the way home.

The one person whose name he knew was Naruto, because Naruto made damn sure everyone knew his name.

Sasuke's parents were dead, and unable to tell him to stay away from the demon brat. He didn't listen to anyone else anyway, with the grudging exception of the Sandaime, who was tentatively marked down as maybe half-decently trustworthy. _Maybe_.

Not being a fool, Sarutobi made sure no one who might tell Sasuke caught him reading Icha Icha.

On that particular day, Sasuke had left class early when an Anbu had stopped by to report that Uchiha Shigure had broken his leg climbing a tree (Konohamaru had dared him) and was running to the hospital carrying the day's bentos (after the third attempt to drug them, he didn't let his cousins' food out of his sight) when Naruto ran into him.

Now, in Sasuke's defense, Naruto had done this deliberately, since he knew how everyone made a big fuss about the Uchiha and boxes being spilled everywhere on top of that would make a good distraction. So he really was asking for it.

Sasuke had let his taijutsu grades slip and was only doing enough of the homework to avoid being held back. However, he was special jounin level in capturing and subduing brats who needed to be given a Time Out by being pinned to the wall with kunai.

Iruka, the Anbu, and the truant officers all dropped their jaws, amazed by how easily he had vanquished the fox brat and wished they could hire him right then and there.

As they watched in awe Sasuke kept grinding Naruto's face into the food strewn all over the road and informing him that he, Uchiha Sasuke, did not need his, Uzumaki Naruto's bullshit and if Naruto did not personally replace every single one of those bentos he had ruined by the time Sasuke got back from the hospital and his immature, idiotic behavior made Sasuke's little cousins miss lunch then Sasuke would gut him, roast him, and slice him up for sandwich meat _as he screamed._

For the first time in his life, Naruto regretted (part of) a prank. Painting the Hokage monument was one thing (a wonderful idea, that's what it was), but making a fellow orphan go hungry was another.

Iruka let him go after he promised to buy the food, hoping he'd learn from this.

"What is this?" Sasuke demanded when he got back, after yelling at the instructor who should have been keeping an eye on his cousin.

Naruto looked at the moldy rice, wilted seaweed, and three-week-old fish that made up the bentos and didn't see a problem with it. That was what all bentos were like, in his experience. That was why ramen was the best food.

"Are you trying to poison them, you dobe? Look at the sell-by date!"

"Sell-by-date?"

Now, harsh experience had forced Sasuke to learn to identify the innocent look and become aware that no, kids didn't know the things 'everyone knew' unless someone told them. Naruto watched, amazed, as Sasuke took a deep breath and withdrew into a simmering rage. It was the first time anyone but Old Man Hokage had believed Naruto when something really wasn't his fault. "Yes, sell-by date. See this here? You shouldn't buy anything after the sell-by date. Who sold you these?" Who was _really_ responsible for trying to stick his cousins with expired food that would have forced Sasuke to stay up all night as they threw it up?

It was one thing to sell expired food to the fox brat. It was another to have the head of the Uchiha clan in full regalia storming in and demanding an explanation for something that, under Konoha law, could be considered an outright attack on his clan.

The public outrage and the fines the council levied forced him out of business and when Sasuke picked up the children and headed home that day he also dragged Naruto along on the shopping trip and showed him how to tell if food was good or not.

Even with Sasuke's specialized skill set it took time to make those bento, and Naruto was not getting out of replacing them.

As Naruto kept his word and Sasuke thought happily of the extra fifteen minutes he'd be able to sleep in the next morning the children swarmed the new person, telling him how to make their bento and saying how much they admired his pranks.

The distraction actually allowed Sasuke to get caught up with his carefully-calculated minimum amount of homework, and he graciously allowed Naruto to stay and do his as Sasuke supervised the children doing theirs.

The children were amazed at a bigger kid who knew less than they did and Naruto ended up with seventeen tutors.

And the eighteen members of the Uchibi clan ended up with a math tutor. Naruto didn't know anything about geometry, but he had a head for figures and could pick them up quickly.

It was the first time in his life someone had said he was good at school stuff. He had people looking up to him. No one had called him any names and he wasn't being chased out. Naruto kept pinching himself when no one was looking

When Naruto asked if he please could come back tomorrow, Sasuke's reaction could be summed up as, 'Sure you can, my new cook and babysitter.' Not wanting to endanger his new happiness, Naruto did everything he could to be indispensable, from making everyone's favorites to playing ninja. From dusting to acting as Sasuke's training dobe.

Sasuke, after the first night he'd had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep since the massacre, offered Naruto a job. Naruto was even more stunned. You could get paid for being in heaven?

It was when Naruto took over as Sasuke's accountant that Sasuke began to wish Naruto had been born a girl. Because, according to what little the young boy knew about male-female relations, then Sasuke could marry her and the kids would have a mother. And marriage meant his new labor-saving device, defender against the cursed tax forms, and favorite person in the whole wide world would never, ever be able to leave. And he wasn't alone in feeling this way

Thus it was that Sasuke the pervert-hater and the rest of the Uchibi clan became responsible for the creation of the third-most perverted jutsu of all time.

* * *

While adequate sleep, completing his homework and sparing-playing with the chibis and his training dobe Naruto allowed Sasuke to become top of the class (he never caught up in book work all the way, but his now-jounin-level child-grabbing and related skills made him first at the practical), Naruto still flunked.

Oh, he did okay in bookwork, because Naruto wouldn't want to lose the admiration of the Uchibi Army (and Sasuke would have kicked his ass) and the teachers couldn't miss-mark pages that someone would be going over with Naruto to see what he had done wrong. And he came in second in taijutsu – inevitable, since Sasuke had started at such a young age and training together at the same pace had allowed him to keep slightly ahead.

But Sasuke didn't know how to identify problems caused by too much chakra, let alone teach Naruto how to deal with it, and so while Naruto knew quite a few other jutsu he still couldn't climb trees or do a bunshin.

Secretly, Sasuke was happy Naruto hadn't graduated. On the one hand, Naruto was his friend. On the other, this meant he would be staying in Konoha while Sasuke was on missions, looking after the children and threatening to kill anyone who looked at them funny. He could have made a fuss. Naruto didn't ask him to. He wanted to graduate on his own.

He did.

The next morning, Sasuke watched a small army of Narutos fighting the small army of Uchibi (soon joined by the Konohamaru Corps) while other Narutos cooked, cleaned, and worked on the construction of all the booby traps he and Naruto had been planning on adding to the estate's defenses as soon as they had a chance. He realized that only one thing could make this any better. "Hmm, can you henge your bunshin? That would be useful."

Sasuke had lost his mother at a young age. So the sight of dozens of buxom bikini-clad (there were children present) women taking care of everything and wanting to do things for him was just too much for the boy.

The Uchibis stopped and stared. "Wow."

"You got Sasuke?" They crowded around the pool of blood on the floor.

"Wow." Just wow: that was the majority response.

"Nee-chan, is Ni-san a pervert?" Sasuke was ni-san or aniki (regular big brother or big brother/boss): Naruto was Ni-chan or Nee-chan (big brother or sister).

"I… I, Uzumaki Naruto, have created the ultimate jutsu! In your face, Sasuke!" The… other movements that occurred when Naruto punched the air knocked out two others.

After the Hokage managed to convince Sasuke that this was a normal part of growing up, he wasn't a pervert and shouldn't commit seppuku, Naruto took to staying in female form a lot to taunt him. Sasuke, not being an idiot, kept Naruto from figuring out that he really didn't mind. Really.

He would have felt a bit bad about yielding to the desire to wage a subtle campaign of psychological warfare to get Naruto to stay female permanently, since he'd already picked out his future wife, if it weren't for the fact clan heads were allowed more than one wife.

Harem no Jutsu, indeed.

* * *

Everyone knew that once he came of age, Sasuke would be Konoha's most sought-after bachelor. Not only was he rich, handsome, a skilled ninja and so on, but he was also was trailed by lots of adorable coo-inducing chick magnets and would clearly be an awesome father.

Sasuke had one criterion for his future wife: be a female Uzumaki Naruto.

Failing that, they had to be unconnected to any of the clans, because the clans wanted to absorb the Uchiha, especially the Hyuuga. They also had be responsible, get along well with children, and above, all, be a skilled enough ninja to kill anyone, Itachi or pervert, who attacked the compound while Sasuke was away.

Now, good female ninja were rare these days, and most of them were only good since they got clan training. Someone being good without any obvious powerful backing was suspicious, and Tenten was out since Sasuke had heard of Gai.

So, he was probably going to have to train up one himself, he decided while trying to stay awake during a council meeting. However, if he showed interest in anyone female, then certain people (he looked at Danzo as he thought that) would try to get their claws into her.

So, he needed a decoy. He knew just the person.

No one as paranoid as Uchiha Sasuke would have missed someone skulking around his compound. Once he got the drop on Hyuuga Hinata and got the story out of her, however, he totally understood. From how the Hyuuga had tried to get him to fire Naruto (as well as everyone else) they seemed to think he was a bad influence, and it wasn't like he'd let his children be around a bad influence either. So he'd let Hinata join the training fights and so on, because it got him another free babysitter, and if Naruto was going to marry someone else it would be someone he approved of.

However…

Her father would have thrown a fit if Hinata had started making heart-shaped bentos and experimenting with makeup for the sake of Uzumaki Naruto. Uchiha Sasuke was another matter entirely, and if Naruto just happened to be there, and ate most of the food, and looked at Hinata worriedly when he saw shadows under her eyes and ask if she was getting enough sleep…

Well, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. For now.

And they seemed to be a good influence on her.

The Uchiha giving in and probably letting the Hyuuga reabsorb them one day was big news. Compared to that, no one noticed Sasuke giving the only student better academically than him a job as tutor (with emphasis on manners and girl stuff) to the Uchibis, and also having her help with their physical training.

It wasn't the business of outsiders if she'd been given access to the Uchiha jutsu library as well as the etiquette books.

Thus began the legend of Shiroi no Sakura, Sakura the White Serpent, mistress of a thousand jutsu, who would earn the title of 'The Professor' by following in the footsteps of the Third Hokage, and her epic rivalry with Orochimaru.

Best described by Naruto: "It's the battle of the jutsu-freak snake perverts! Winner gets Sasuke's body!"

However, Sasuke's plan to have Sakura watch the house when he and Naruto were gone (Hinata's father wouldn't let her), was ruined when she not only graduated as well but was assigned to the same genin team, meaning she'd be absent exactly when they were.

The negotiations had been a bit delicate. The Hokage had wanted Naruto to be trained by his father's student so he'd have a chance at fair treatment, the council had insisted on Sasuke being trained by the very same sharingan-wielder, and having Hinata on the team (third in taijutsu) would have made it too unbalanced, but her father didn't want Sasuke to be around another girl all the time who might try to win him away from Hinata.

The girl everyone had assumed was _Naruto's _girlfriend seemed safe enough.


	2. All Hail Orange

_All hail orange, the great anti-angst. It does indeed help mood (part of why a lot of product packaging is orange), boost appetite & give people headaches if they look (glare) at it too long. Between that and it being weight training for stealth, it's the perfect color for a young Naruto._

* * *

Growing up, Naruto was protected from the scorn and hatred of the village by three people: the third Hokage, Orange-sama, and Ramen-sama.

The village of Konoha wasn't exactly Shinto, but there were no atheists in foxholes. Many people had shrines to various deities, all the way from Amaterasu to the God of Kunai (please don't let them hit me, please don't let them hit me…). Not to mention a great deal of tree spirits, since this was Konoha, after all.

Since no one wanted to sell him anything good, ramen was the one thing that Naruto could always count on to be warm, filling, and not make him sick. In a world where people were cold and cruel, ramen could always be counted on and so could Old Man Ichiraku. Naruto was chased out of any other shrine he entered, but he was always welcome at the temple of the really great god Ramen.

As for orange, while ramen was only there when he could get to Ichiraku's or he spent a whole three minutes praying for its blessing, orange was with him always. Whenever he was around orange, everything seemed brighter. Even the ramen tasted better. People noticed him more. And, just like all food besides ramen was terrible, so were all clothes that weren't orange. It was the clothes he was allowed to buy that were orange that didn't have holes or other problems (being orange was considered bad enough). Orange always made sure he was warm and cozy.

Other people might say that orange was a bad color, but that was because they were jealous that Orange liked him better.

Orange even let him know who the bad people were: it gave people who glared at him headaches and made them look away.

"It makes you too easy to spot, dobe," Sasuke repeated.

"Yeah! So if I can hide wearing orange, then I'm really good, right?" Naruto grinned.

Sasuke thought about this for a minute and not only let Naruto order his new 'respectable' clothing from the ninja tailor the Uchiha had always used in orange as well as the Uchiha colors of red and black but also suggested a training outfit in orange with weights.

He was considering ordering stealth practice outfits for the children (in a fiery red-orange, not actually orange), when the Hokage came over to see how everything was doing and Naruto showed him how cool the formal kimono had come out.

It wasn't until graduation and finding out about the Kyuubi that Sasuke realized why the Hokage's face had gone cold when he saw the fox pattern. Although it had been very suspicious when he'd 'accidently' wrecked it and given Sasuke access to his own personal tailor.

Sasuke's had never been heard from again.

Training the Uchibi army and figuring out scenarios with Sasuke had taught Naruto about specialization. So, since he now had his own army of Kage Bunshins and could henge them into the right type of gear and so on, he needed to think about what type of squads would work best for what.

Since Harem no Jutsu was such a powerful technique, that of course had to be one of the first he worked on. Or no, protecting his precious people came first.

Using their flashyness to grab attention and status as knockouts to knock out anyone who saw them (stunning, literally) while keeping them too busy to notice what else they were doing, Division 2 of the Awesome Kage Army, the Orange Bombshells only became more enthralling when Naruto figured out how to do genjutsu.

Although it wasn't until he got his summon contract and with it a way to allow them to survive multiple hits and become practical as meatshields instead of sacrifices that the first AKA division, the bodyguard specialist Knights of the Holy Ramen reached their full potential.

* * *

As a Hyuuga, Hinata's life had been set ahead of her. She would either become clan head and live to serve the clan, to the point of letting someone the elders picked sire her children, or be given the caged bird seal and still serve the clan the way her Uncle and Neji-ni-san did.

She didn't know if she wanted Hanabi to be given the seal, so maybe she should stay weak, for her sake…

The Hyuuga were very traditional. A traditional Japanese good girl was gentle, and shy, and devoted to others. That was not a good ninja. The more Hinata's father told her she was bad, the harder she had always tried to be good. The more he hurt her, the less able to bear the idea of hurting others she became.

If she defied him, he yelled at her. If she didn't defy him, he yelled at her. There was no way for her to win.

But there was someone who kept trying no matter what. Her inspiration, the light of her life.

Uzumaki Naruto.

In the face of the hatred of everyone, he persevered. No matter how he was smacked down he always got up again. Naruto was the bravest, strongest, kindest… best person in the world. Naruto was a bright, orange, warm sun, shining upon even her. A beacon, a sign that she could do it. If that light ever went out…

Most young girls dream of their life and future happiness. Hinata knew that her life wasn't worth dreaming about.

Many ninja dreamed instead of their death, how it would be epic. Protecting the village, killing their enemy…

Hinata couldn't be Naruto's bride. If she even crept up to him and told him she liked him, he would, oh, he would be so happy (she hoped) and her father would find out and things would become even worse for him. Or what if he tried to help her, break her free of this fate? She would die before ever hurting Naruto, her most precious person.

So when she saw him sitting alone on the swing and aching, when she ached to go to him, she dreamed that one day she would prove to him, without any doubt, that someone loved him. Someone saw him as precious and worth protecting and admiring and…

So she dreamed of laying down her life for him, an offering to him. For Naruto to be alive and happy because of her? There was nothing that could make her happier.

Most young ninja girls read books about ninja defending princesses and imagined themselves as the princesses, the ones being protected.

Unlike them, Hinata wanted to be a ninja. Naruto even had golden hair, and shining blue eyes, oh, if only she could lift the clouds of sadness from them!

If only she could have been his friend instead of Uchiha Sasuke. Oh! Naruto was coming out of the compound now! She'd know his voice anywhere as he called out for the mask guys to gather.

Activating her eyes and straining her ears, she saw that Sasuke had come out as well as Naruto. "Okay, time to test my pervert detecting jutsu!"

"Anyone who fails this test will be barred from coming anywhere near my compound," Sasuke informed the Anbu. He was carrying a book: she looked closer and saw it was one of the medic-nin books.

"Alright, here we go! Sexy no jutsu!"

While Naruto and Sasuke were too young to really know what they were doing, Hinata had been in an incredibly stressful home since birth, something that causes girls to mature faster. That was the reason for her early period and the following… rapid and sizeable development.

Peeking under Naruto's clothes (accidental! She swore!) had made her blush. Seeing a bright, bubbly, happy Naruto with long golden hair and absolutely no clothes covering her soft, shapely body blowing a kiss at her (or in her direction, at least)?

Naruto had already been able to make Hinata swoon. This gave her her first nosebleed.

Oblivious to the non-Anbu spectator, Naruto pumped her fist. "Awesome! How accurate is it this time?"

"Accurate enough." Sasuke scowled at the bodies. "According to the book this version is too big there." He looked at Naruto's chest.

"Yeah, and according to my research, this works better." Naruto folded her arms under them and then they became his arms again. Sasuke tried not to feel disappointed. "Let's go find some more perverts to test it out on!"


	3. With Bells On

_Is there anyone here who hasn't read Terry Pratchett's Night Watch?_

_There's a bit about Lord Vetinari, tigers, and ultimate camouflage. Yeah._

_Orange rules. I hate how way too many fics can't have Naruto be badass without making him cease to be Naruto. There are good fics that have Naruto suddenly think that emo colors that actually aren't good for camo either are cool and dislike ramen, but most of them make me feel like Naruto has been replaced by some unholy combination of him and Sasuke, perhaps even with mpreg involved._

* * *

"But when we get the bells, who goes back to the academy?"

Sasuke just gave him a look. Sakura raised her hand in the air and waved it a bit. Um, hello? Wasn't that obvious? "I need six more months of kata at least until I want to be in actual danger. We're just genin, or not even genin yet, I don't want to be trying to dodge _and _strategize at the same time." Katas meant her body would mostly do it for her. "And I haven't finished with the D-rank jutsu yet." She still had the entire collection of D-rank suiton jutsu to memorize, and then she needed to start figuring out which ones to actually learn to use first, and…

Anyway, "It'll all be material I've seen before, so I'll have plenty of time to study."

"You don't mind going back to the academy?" Naruto scratched at the back of his head. He couldn't figure out if being self-sacrificing was a girl thing (Hinata was that way too) or… he'd worked so hard to graduate, but he could kind of see why Sakura didn't consider giving up a bell as a sacrifice.

"It's the intelligent thing to do. Have fun painting fences. Normally genin teams have three members, but it's obvious they assigned the Copy-Cat Ninja to us because they want Uchiha-san to be taught to use his sharingan-"

Sasuke snorted, arms folded.

Sakura continued, "So he might actually want to flunk both of us if possible and have Uchiha-san," she wasn't going to call her boss Sasuke-kun, and the less familiar she was the more he liked her, "as an apprentice. If you go back to Iruka's class because of me you'd be bored stiff and he wouldn't be happy with me," and part of her job was dealing with the school faculty when it came to the Uchibi's grades and so on, "And you might not get another chance until we figure out why you can do kage bunshin all day and can't do a real bunshin to save your life. Or save your chance to become Hokage."

"Maybe we should deliberately flunk." Sasuke didn't want to get stuck with a disrespectful pervert who kept a clan head waiting for hours, especially when his only claim to fame was having committed grave robbery at some point.

"That's probably what he wants us to do." The only way the eraser could have hit him was if he'd let it.

Or maybe he just was that incompetent. Team Seven, over their association with Hatake Kakashi, often found themselves wondering that.

"So, harem no jutsu, or…"

"We _know_ he's a pervert."

"You two are the perverts," Sakura muttered under her breath.

One of Sasuke's many tests had been exposing her to Naruto's infamous jutsu. Sakura's only response had been a glare and saying that if she was going to have to put up with perversion she'd better get a pay raise. Sakura was one of those rare people who was almost entirely straight, so akin to the rulers she wielded with an expert hand when sketching out kunai trajectories and booby trap diagrams that even bouncy bubbly blondeness had no effect.

Now, if that tasteless, excessive flab and lack of muscle had been replaced by lean, firm, prime male ninja stock? If instead of a bunch of walking sterotypes and insults to kuniochidom she'd been confronted by naked Sasukes, then Sakura would have been out like a light. Luckily, Naruto and Sasuke were boys and hadn't quite figured out there were differences besides the physical yet. The idea that someone might have a sex drive and consider boobies unattractive flabby lumps of flesh that needed to be covered up and decorated in order to look half-decent hadn't yet penetrated.

Once, Naruto had a crush on Sakura. She had rejected him because he was too nice.

For women like her, love was intertwined with respect. To her, it had seemed as though Naruto was a weakling trying to suck up to her so she'd like him, someone so pathetic he couldn't even make a single friend. Ding went the poser alert.

Someone who sucked-up to others was weak. A weak ninja was a failure, and all their mothers had told him to stay away from boys that would only die gory deaths and break their hearts. No, Sakura wanted a _man_.

Sasuke didn't suck up to anyone. He never pretended to like anyone, male or female. He didn't see it as worth the effort. So, his fangirls knew, that meant that if one day he said he liked them he would actually mean it.

Sasuke had picked her. That meant that he actually viewed her as possessing some value. The strongest ninja of their generation thought that _she_ might one day be worthy of his respect.

Sakura had already thought Sasuke was awesome, but the day he gave her that supreme compliment was the day inner Sakura ripped her clothes off and demanded, "Give me babies, now!"

So Sakura put up with Sasuke's perverted quirks, studied him to determine his taste in women, grew her hair out, invested in the best push-up training bra she could find, and _trained_.

And inner Sakura fanned herself watching Naruto and Sasuke spar, cheering on Sasuke and hoping he would burn off Naruto's shirt again.

"Since he's a pervert: if he sees your technique, he might pass us just so he can have you use it all the time while he's training you," Sasuke warned Naruto.

Naruto sighed. "The curse of having such an awesome technique…"

"Let's just try to kill him."He'd asked for it, literally.

"How about…" Sakura took out her kunai and posed, looking all cutely determined.

Sasuke nodded. One of the problems kuniochi students had and Naruto had taken advantage of was that a lot of Konoha ninja, especially the younger ones who hadn't faced real kuniochi and been killed by them yet, went easy on girls.

"I'll swarm him, you two actually attack,"

"-I'll keep doing things that would get me killed in an actual fight and see if he gets distracted by trying not to actually hurt me too badly,"

"And I'll let him think I've gotten angry when I don't win right away and you'll sneak up on him," Sasuke finished. "Get changed while we get started."

"What?"

"Naruto. This isn't some prank on the Anbu. Get changed."

"For this loser?"

"He's going to be our sensei. He should know what he's letting himself in for."

"Come on! This is broad daylight! Yellow grass, brown ground and trees, green leaves… I'm already dressed better for blending in than you!"

"That loser is a jounin. Do you want him to beat you, the terror of the Anbu?"

Twenty minutes later – they'd wanted him to think he'd seen all their tricks – Sasuke had a fourth most hated person in the world (after Danzo), and smiled happily as he torched that book the pervert loved so much.

Sakura winced as Narutos mooned Kakashi, but it appeared that either he had the grace to give up or he was indeed a pervert and a sexist pig, willing to defile her Sasuke's tight ass but not that of even a seeming-woman.

He barely seemed to notice Naruto now either. "My… " His book! "How did you do that?" Had Naruto somehow learned the Hiraishin?

"I just walked right up to you and took it!" Naruto changed back to the form that Sakura considered kinda hot actually. Inner Sakura growled jealously, seeing the disappointment Sasuke tried to hide. Standing next to that tree, he blended in amazingly well in camo.

Kakashi smiled under his mask. "Where? I don't see a thing," and leaped back. "Ah, a ghost! I must have killed you during the test. You're a ninja, you knew the risks!"

"I'm not a ghost!"

Catching on, Sakura peered into the woods. "You can come out now, Naruto, we got the bells."

Naruto grumbled. "I'm not even trying to hide, you just suck, Sakura." Practically everyone in Konoha sucked at stealth, he realized. What kind of pervert tutor let Konohamaru think _that _was how to hide? He was probably sabotaging his training so it was easier to catch the kid.

"So that's why you wear orange! You're so insignificant that without it no one would ever notice you," she taunted him.

Sakura knew nothing of Naruto's battles to be acknowledged. Didn't know that was indeed part of the reason he wore orange. Neither did Kakashi, who thought these were adorable students, and that Naruto was volunteering as group clown.

Within a week, Orochimaru had received reports of a Konoha genin who possessed a bloodline limit that granted him the power of invisibility while not wearing orange. Since this was a bit similar to a now-extinct mist bloodline who had been able to change the colors of their skin and been nearly invisible while naked, and no one knew how Naruto's parents had been, the other villages took this somewhat seriously until follow-up reports told them this was just the leaf-nins being crazy as usual.

When Naruto grew up, he replaced his orange jumpsuit with an orange-and-black tiger-themed 'really cool robe-thing' Hinata had sewn him, with little tinkling bells. It was very warm and padded but made out of some ninja fabric that got rid of sweat and so on.

His stealth skills became so legendary that future generations of Konoha student ninja doing stealth training in regulation orange were told to stop complaining how hard this was making it to hide, the Sixth Hokage had strolled right into Akatsuki headquarters wearing an _orange bathrobe with bells on_.

…and actually, yes, between the suiton jutsu and crater caused by the epic battle it actually had been uphill both ways through the snow.


	4. Kakashi's Noble Sacrifice

_Child-grabbing classes are a Yu-gi-oh abridged reference, of course._

_Also, do we want to explain certain of Kakashi's judgment errors by saying he was stoned at the time? Makes more sense than canon._

_Since muscle weighs more than fat, most superheroines at those heights with those weights & figures? They'd have to be technically obese, barely have any muscle at all, to weigh that little. Since the height-weight BMI charts just go by those two measurements, any healthy woman will be considered overweight according to those charts, because muscle weighs more than fat and the calculations apparently assume people are sedentary and have barely any muscle. You are doing 'getting in shape' right when your clothing sizes are going down and the number on the scale is going up, since that means fat's getting burned and replaced with muscle, and developing muscle raises your metabolism instead of lowering it the way dieting does. _

* * *

Since Uchiha-sama had been assigned to the same team as _that_, there weren't as many D-rank mission requests for him personally as Sarutobi had expected. Requests were filled by teams, and few adults with money wanted the kyuubi brat to 'give me a massage,' which in the case of the missions placed by women who had connections to Danzo or the other villages especially _really_ meant 'provide me with a Sharingan-carrying sperm sample.'

Did none of them realize that the boy was twelve? A lot of people tended to think that he was older than he was, from how he carried himself.

There were however, in this universe, two sets of requests that the Hokage and the mission assigners decided to grant.

But first, a taste of the normal D-rank missions.

* * *

"Did the mission specify what color they wanted the fence painted?"

Sakura pointed. "They provided the paint, Naruto."

"We're not using this. I know paint." From graffiti and being forced to paint over graffiti. "It'll start cracking in a month. If they can spring for a d-rank they should have paid for decent paint." Naruto took pride in his work as an artist, and this was his first official mission ever.

To see what would happen, Kakashi pulled out the mission request. "They just asked that we paint the fence. They didn't specify that we use the paint provided or even that it be plain." In other words, they deserved whatever Naruto was about to do. When writing a contract for ninja, you watched the fine print. Especially if it was a mission for new genin, who often revolted against the boredom by doing everything they could to cheat. It was practically part of the training.

A quick kage bunshin no jutsu was followed by use of the henge to provide them with paintbrushes.

As they swarmed the fence (Naruto was always prepared for random acts of 'street art' – he loved how much he could hide in his jumpsuit) Sasuke wondered idly, "What are you going to do?"

"Something traditional." Right out of a wood block print. Of course, Naruto's ID photo face paint had been in traditional style. Oni and stuff were awesome.

"Is there a record for most D-ranks done in a day?" Sakura really hoped not. The longer it took them to complete the required amount of D-ranks the longer she got to train. If it became a competition, they were in trouble.

"Well, they did give me a few more…" Smiling, Kakashi took the sheaf out of his pocket. "The daimyo's wife…"

…was amazed by how quickly Sasuke returned after walking off after she'd described her cat. Also by how tamely it was letting him hold it, although the way his fingernails were digging into the scruff of its neck threateningly were the reason, not any skill with animals.

"You_ are_ good at retrieval."

"The principal wants him to teach the truant officers child-grabbing classes," Naruto told Kakashi, "but of course he said no." Sasuke was a true friend.

Sasuke scowled at the memory. Child-grabbing: could they have made it sound any more wrong?

* * *

Sakura gathered up the pretty-looking weeds into a bouquet and took a deep breath to appreciate the fragrance. "No wonder weeding this garden was so urgent. These seeds must have blown here from some ninja's garden." All these plants were poisonous. Not the parts she was holding, of course, but gloves had been provided since some of them had highly toxic sap if you crushed the stems.

And acidic in that one's case: the clone yelped and waved its hands before disappearing.

Sasuke had been burning the piles Naruto's clones gathered. "No! Don't burn that one! The smoke of that weed is…"

Kakashi pushed him out of the way and took a deep breath. Sighing happily, he told them that, "You should be grateful you have a sensei so willing to take a hit for the team. Why don't you go to the hospital and do the next mission yourselves while I make sure all of this dangerous plant is destroyed?"

As they left he took out the papers with the missions they had already done on them and sent a bunshin for more paper.

"What's that plant, anyway?" Naruto asked.

"Why he's always late," was Sakura's guess.

* * *

"They want us to go to the hospital? That's a surprise," Naruto joked.

"Hn."

"Have you seen Sasuke at the hospital yet, Sakura?" Naruto continued, undaunted.

"No, why?"

"You know how Sasuke can get his hands on any medic-nin book he wants? Well…"

As they walked through the door Naruto was interrupted by happy cries of, "Uchiha-san!" from the nurses on duty.

Within seconds he was surrounded: Naruto pulled Sakura out of the way so she wouldn't be caught in the crush. "Congratulations on becoming a genin!"

"We all knew you could do it, Uchiha-san!"

"Hn."

"You are here on a mission, right? I hope they're all okay? Of course they are, you take _such _good care of them."

A half-shrug.

"The director tried to get you apprenticed, but maybe it's for the best. The sooner you make chunin, the better."

"Poor Kabuto-kun…" Two shook their heads at each other as the mob almost pushed Sasuke through the halls.

"We can always use you in the pediatric ward, but there's this one girl that Ibiki-san said was urgent: they need information from her about that horrible missing-nin attack but she won't stop crying whenever she's reminded of it…"

"He's really good with traumatized kids, and he invented this thing that lets you change diapers from ten feet away as long as you have good aim with kunai. They love him here." Enough that Naruto had noticed a marked difference the instant he'd become Sasuke's friend.

The senior staff here had been in the thick of the battle to save as much of Konoha as possible from the Kyuubi. They'd seen the ravaged bodies and watched as far too many of them died. Pointedly ignoring Naruto was a vast improvement over the walls of massed killer intent that had practically pushed him out bodily as a child.

No one knew how to kill you in as many ways and as unpleasantly as a medic nin. Few understood the terror of death as thoroughly as those who fought not only other ninja but the shinigami himself.

That was one of the two reasons Sasuke made an effort to earn the allegiance and help of the medic-nin. Even though it meant putting up with the fangirls.

* * *

"Attack!" Activating their eyes to find out what was going on; within seconds almost all of the adult Hyuuga had been incapacitated by either blood loss or apoplexy, thanks to the Orange Bombshells. Only a few were still standing, and no matter how many they popped they were unable to stem the tide of redecorators.

"I can't believe the Hokage authorized a blank check mission like this," Sakura said as she removed the hands covering the child's eyes now that the Narutos had henged their uniforms on.

"I can." Sergeant-Major Naruto informed her, keeping an eye on the general's signal fan.

"Please? Aniki's been too busy to play with us. We saved up all our allowance, Hokage-sama, so please can we have him play with us today?" Uchiha Ran looked up at Sakura with hopeful wide eyes.

"Aww, isn't she cute?" Private Naruto noogied her. "Hinata's going to be disappointed in you, though."

"Hanabi insulted Hinata-nee-san again, after everything Hinata-nee-san's done for her." No one messed with The Family. Hanabi had been warned. "And Hinata-nee-chan wants Neji to cheer up, and orange cheers everybody up." And this would teach the Hyuuga not to stop paying their protection 'tax' just because the adults weren't around anymore. Ran's daddy had been a detective, and she was going to follow in his footsteps.

What, you thought a clan dedicated to sowing chaos and destruction had been _clean_ cops?

"Hey, we're just genin; we're not allowed to argue with the client. And Kakashi's not here to countermand their orders." Another private Naruto scanned the area with her goggles. "Haven't they realized yet that the Kaiten just sends the paint bombs flying everywhere?"

"These are the Hyuuga. There hasn't been a new thought in their brains in centuries since they can't get past the sticks to where their heads are. Hinata-chan excepted, of course."

"Are you guys going to get in trouble?" Sakura knew that if she claimed that if she had tried to stop them, really, she would be believed. Obviously _she _couldn't have done anything to stop the Uchiha clan and the Kyuubi brat. It would be sickening if it weren't so useful.

"Nah." Naruto had read the laws after learning how to read, since it would be really embarrassing if he actually got jail time. Not only would it look bad for a future Hokage, but since the Uchiha were traditionally in charge of the police force? Sasuke would laugh. "This'll teach Kakashi to be late."

"Where is he, anyway?"

"As of the last report, buying more cheese puffs."

"Nice of him to share with the memorial stone, though."

* * *

"Ow. Ow ow ow…" Sakura really, really regretted not stopping her run when they'd started hurting. Damn self-discipline! It had only hurt a little at first, but it just got worse and worse with every single one, like Chinese water torture.

Sensitive round fleshy bits weren't meant to be banged around. She'd never laugh at a man who got kicked at the balls again.

She'd still do it: she was a ninja after all. But she wouldn't laugh.

How did Naruto do it? Well, they were fake; he probably hadn't realized this aspect. Or had deliberately left it out.

This was the _last time _she would try to exercise without a bra. It _hurt_. But what was she supposed to do? She barely had anything as it was, and bras meant for ninja training compressed the breasts. Now she knew why: it was so they wouldn't bounce and hurt like this. She didn't want to pad her breasts, that was dishonest, but she would have to pad them if she even wanted them to look like the size they were!

And no matter what she did, her abs weren't flat, and even though she tried not to give in to her food cravings she kept weighing more and more!

It seemed like the harder she tried to get into shape the fatter she got, almost! She had some muscle on her arms now, and she _hoped_ it was mostly muscle that was making her thighs so big, and hopefully Naruto and Hinata were just giving her a complex and that was why it seemed like her breasts just got smaller every day.

She was this close to trying to see if someone had figured out a jutsu for that, except her parents would freak.

Naruto's damn sexy no jutsu was pretty clearly Sasuke's type, and if she wasn't going to lose to Ino there was no way she was going to lose to a guy!


	5. Do You Know How Far Away Wave Is?

After that, the Hokage knew he had to get Naruto out of town until it blew over. The Hyuuga weren't going to off Sasuke, not when he was their ticket to finally putting the Uchiha clan in their place as a branch house, but sending a message by killing his liegeman was practically traditional, and since Naruto was the Kyuubi brat as well?

Despite the danger that someone might recognize Naruto as his father's son, despite the risk of an international diplomatic incident instead of just an inter-clan one, he had to risk sending Naruto outside of Konoha.

Wave should be safe. No one cared about Wave. They didn't have a village or even an army.

Since Naruto kept saying how he wanted to test his Awesome Kage Army against a _real_ one, better be on the safe side…

* * *

Neji hated the main house, how the elders considered his father less than his uncle solely because of an accident of birth. Why, he'd even heard them say that if those Stone nin had tried to kidnap a Hyuuga instead of an Uchiha, and his uncle had killed them instead of the Uchiha clan head, who had gotten out of being executed for it on account of being too young to be held responsible, then they would have sent his father in his uncle's place.

Yes, he hated the main house. His uncle was cruel and Hanabi was a brat. However, he couldn't bring himself to hate Hinata, not really. She was more a victim of his uncle and the elders than he was, and now she was responsible for the _best day ever_.

Well, no, Hinata was too nice to do something like this, even to her father, but he still knew who he had to thank for this: those awful, wonderful little hellions. And his future cousin-in-law, Uzumaki Naruto.

The elders might think that one day they'd be able to put the seal on the Uchibis as vengeance for this, but Neji knew better. The one thing that was keeping the elders from blowing up at the disgrace was making it even harder for Neji to keep the grin off his face as Gai tried to convince them to leave the compound the way it was. It was so much more youthful this way!

* * *

"Do you know how far away Wave is?"

"Look at a map, Naruto."

"It's…"

"_It's more than an hour away from Ichiraku's, that's what it is!_ Have they even heard of ramen there?" Naruto fell to his knees, imploring the heavens and inwardly praying that-

"Just go buy some and have your kage bunshin carry it, you idiot!" Sasuke's eyes were wide with panic. Tomorrow morning? They were going to be alone for weeks and he only had until tomorrow morning to prepare? "Alert Hinata! Check on the emergency rations and buy fresh vegetables! Forge notes in my handwriting excusing them from school until I return! Make sure Danzo hasn't replaced my will with one granting him custody again! Tell Shigure to veto everything, and if he can't, filibuster!"

Shigure wasn't the next-oldest Uchiha, but he was Sasuke's substitute during council meetings when necessary because he was the best at bullshit.

Oh crap, the distraction hadn't worked. "Why don't we bring them with us?" Please please please…

"Outside Konoha territory? You _know_ how many kidnapping attempts there have been in the last year! Oh, that's right, put them in the number three chains," every ninja clan had torture cellars, "so they won't be able to escape until we're six hours out of town. Arm all the lethal booby traps on the perimeter, even the ones they don't know about! Especially those!"

"Breathe, you paranoid bastard!" Naruto considered trying to shake him to snap him out of it, but he liked his windpipe the way it was.

"I don't have time to bre-" Sasuke keeled over.

Everyone stared. Generally when people keeled over around Naruto there were nosebleeds involved, but no. Sasuke's eyes were open, unfocused and horrified.

Dammit. "Everybody back up slowly." Naruto tugged Sakura away, then hurriedly started shaping seals. "Code F!"

"What's going on?"

"When Itachi killed the adults, he used this weird genjutsu to…"

Sasuke's eyes snapped open and focused, still wild, on the dark-haired adult in the room. "I'll fucking kill you, you…" One of the Ramen Knights body-slammed Iruka out of the line of fire (luckily Iruka had the sense to keep moving when it was popped by a kunai) while a squad of Orange Bombshells tackled Sasuke to the ground. The words were replaced by incoherent snarls of rage.

Naruto hurriedly replenished them as they were destroyed by kunai, shoes with their concealed poison needles extended, knees, elbows, and teeth. Luckily Sasuke was too out of it to do even a basic replacement jutsu. "Show Sasuke him killing everyone in the clan over and over, including the kids and…"

Naruto had to dodge as one of the Orange Bombshells was hurled at where he was standing, "When he gets worried he has these flashbacks and…"

He summoned more Ramen Knights to drag everyone else out of the room, "What's really dangerous is afterwards, since then he _really_…"

Suddenly the screams were replaced by sobs.

"Tries to kill me."

"Mom…" Narutos patted Sasuke on the head, desperately looking for an escape route as he clung tight to one of them, burying his head between her breasts.

"Or, you know, hit me repeatedly in the head until I can convince him I don't remember a thing that happened, really." Suddenly all the Narutos looked at Sakura and grinned slowly.

She didn't notice. "Poor Sasuke, how horrible." Outer Sakura wanted to hold him and try to comfort him.

'That's right, come to Mama,' Inner Sakura grinned wickedly.

Suddenly, all the kage bunshin vanished and Naruto pushed her forward into Sasuke. "You're a real girl, you do it. See you in Wave!"

Outside, Tazuna went in search of more booze. He was so, so screwed.

In the end, Naruto escaped without brain damage. When Sasuke snapped out of it enough to realize who was snuggling him and what had caused the flashbacks, he realized that Naruto, in an effort to preserve his alleged brain cells (and to protect the Uchibis, too), would take care of all the exhausting, stressful, flashback-inducing set-up work since Sasuke was incapacitated.

Leaving Sasuke free to be fed fresh-baked cookies by Sakura's mother, since after Sakura had gotten over the awe-inspiring feeling of being needed by Uchiha Sasuke himself (and yielded to Inner Sakura's demands for a high-five), she'd realized she should probably go for more experienced backup.

Around eight, while a couple dozen were being boxed up for him to take back to the darling children, Hinata arrived (Neji, being one to pay his debts, was covering for her absence), to aid in fussing over Sasuke and report that everything was indeed being taken care of. "Kaito-kun said that Naruto could borrow his father's hang-glider so Naruto could send clones back faster." Naruto was trying to find a way to put more chakra into his clones, but if he'd left some here they wouldn't have lasted the entire trip to Wave and back. But if one of them flew here and then back on the hang-glider carrying a bag full of others henged into kunai or something, that might work.

"At the beginning I could barely even leave the house without something happening. Kaito, Tohru and Shigure are about to graduate, but… I can't learn just by sparring. I can't be a ninja if I never leave Konoha." Naruto might think that the human body could take more abuse than a normal person like Sasuke actually could, but he wouldn't risk actually killing his friend. And Sasuke might have reworked the clan's defenses, but it had been Itachi's home ground once too. Not to mention that he did _not _want the fight to take place there. No, ideally he'd stop Itachi before he reached Konoha. So he had to learn to fight in different terrain.

"But you worry. One day you can't leave them alone for five seconds without them nearly committing suicide by table and the next they want to go fight bandits," Sakura's mother commiserated.

"Mom!"

"All babies are like that," Sasuke told her. "They want to find out how stuff works and they don't know what will kill them yet. The sooner you let them figure it out the better."

Telling a little kid 'don't fucking touch my kunai!' while trying not to tear your hair out in frustration didn't work. They weren't going to trust a crazy person and it didn't explain why they weren't supposed to. 'This is sharp, see? They're designed to poke other people's eyes out with. So if you poke _your_ eye out, don't come crying to me because I'll just laugh.' And letting them touch it so they could see that yes, he was right, did.

Of course, in a ninja family, the proper response to, "What did I tell you about running with kunai?" was, "I need to hold it correctly or else I won't be able to stab with a decent amount of force without breaking stride."

Sasuke's approach to them not cleaning their rooms had been, "Don't blame me if you step on a kunai or can't find your shoes." Then, when Shigure had said he couldn't find his shoes, Sasuke's response had been, "I told you so. If you're late and get detention it's your own fault for not doing what I told you."

On the other hand, when Sakura and her mother had that battle Sakura's mother had always given in and cleaned it herself before it got to that point. So Sakura had never actually encountered consequences to not cleaning her room (besides extra chores, which was a consequence of not obeying her mom), and so didn't believe there were any. It undermined respect and credibility.

Sasuke might not have been the Uchibis' real father, but they'd learned that when he said jump they'd damn well better ask how high on the way up, especially in the early days when he was sleep-deprived, already having to fight the urge to kill people, and likely to throw some kunai at their feet if they didn't move fast enough.

"Sakura ran me ragged, I can't imagine having to deal with seventeen of them at your age," Sakura's mother said admiringly. "How _do_ you do it?"

The women of Konoha already would have admired Sasuke for bearing up so well after such a terrible tragedy. It spoke of inner strength. But that was _nothing _next to the mad ninja skills dealing with so many kids demonstrated.

Hinata leaned forward hopefully, Sakura eagerly, preparing to take mental notes.

Inwardly, Hinata sighed happily. Naruto's children, darling little prankster angels. She'd hug them and squeeze them and never be cruel to them the way people were to Naruto or her father was to her. Oh, she hoped some of them inherited Naruto's beautiful blue eyes. She'd have to have a lot to make sure one did, and so that they would have siblings to play with the way she still wasn't able to really play with Hanabi.

Seventeen? Well, if Sasuke could do it, surely she and Naruto could? Naruto had been Sasuke's friend longer and surely knew a lot of his tricks by now.

Sakura's pink hair was definitely a mutation. There were some bloodlines marked by unique or rare hair colors, but nothing of this shade. Sakura had gone looking, hoping there was something that would make her stand out from the crowd of Sasuke's admirers or help her get stronger.

Being civilians, Sakura's family couldn't trace their family tree back very far, so when she was younger she'd imagined that one day she might discover she had some long-lost bloodline.

But no. She had nothing going for her except a good memory.

Sakura didn't really consider herself all that smart. The thing about smart people was that the smarter they were, the more they were aware of how little they actually knew. They didn't act arrogant because they thought they were smarter than other people, they acted arrogant because if _they _were stupid then someone who couldn't do fractions had to be _really_ stupid.

So the more she trained to be worthy of the head of the Uchiha clan, the more aware she became of how worthless she was compared to him, and even Naruto with his amazing regeneration and chakra capacity. And stealth capabilities. And leadership skills (well, when it came to children). And ability to draw. And ability to be much hotter than her. And…

Inner Sakura growled at how even her own _mother _was hanging on Sasuke's every, "Hn." (He didn't do well when on the spot surrounded by fangirls, retreating into monosyllables and scanning the room for exits.) Not to mention the far-more-attractive-than-her Hinata. What if Hinata wised up one day and realized that Sasuke was an even better catch than Naruto? She was the one who was _supposed_ to be his girlfriend, after all.

Her mother wouldn't be present on the trip to Wave. The perfect time to experiment with Breast Enlargement no Jutsu.

_Her _children weren't going to have nothing going for them. _Her _children were going to have a family style, and a bloodline, and…

…And why _couldn't_ she have a bloodline? There were hints in some of the books that it was possible. She wasn't going to go digging up Sasuke's relatives, but there were plenty of enemy ninja out there, and who cared about them?

Inner Sakura smiled like a shark.

* * *

"Have the catapults been loaded with exploding tags?"

"Yup!"

"Have the ANBU been alerted that the kill-on-sight perimeter has temporarily been enlarged by fifteen meters?"

No response. Well, they were ANBU, they'd figure it out. "Alright, time to run some drills!" First, the Hyuuga attack scenario.

Naruto watched as the henged bunshin were detected and everyone got to their positions and used their jutsu. _His _jutsu. "Aww, I'm so proud of them."

Naruto had grown up without a family until the Uchiha had taken him in, but at times like these he wondered if he really was related to them. He didn't look like an Uchiha, but maybe they shared some distant ancestor or something? There had to be some reason they shared the same style, the same really kinda evil sense of humor, desire to fuck with people's heads, and understanding of the power of big boobs. "_People blame me on the Kyuubi…" _he thought before dismissing the idea.

Inside the seal, the Nine-Tails sneezed and tugged at the chains on 'her' arms. No, there wasn't enough slack to dig a handkerchief out from between her breasts. Maybe she shouldn't have had them be quite so large… Nah.

These were the breasts that had challenged gods.

* * *

_Teeny Omake: What if Uchibi Sasuke had the canon Tsukiyomi?_

"Ni-san!" As the child Danzo had tried to steal for ROOT in the confusion ran to hide behind Sasuke, they boy's eyes narrowed.

The darkness around his eyes and the bloodshot veins that ran through them were just from sleep deprivation, he knew, but as that death glare met his eyes Sasuke looked truly demonic. "Tsukiyomi."

Suddenly they were in a nightmare realm. "I was thinking of cutting your balls off for seventy-two hours, you damn pervert, but now I've had a better idea." That grin had too many teeth. "I'm going to put these earplugs in so I don't hear your screams and can catch up on my sleep, and _you_? Are going to spend the next seventy-two hours _watching Barney._"

"Nooooooo!"


	6. Oh Hi There

The day after Naruto learned the Kage Bunshin technique and the truth about the Kyuubi, he knew he had to tell Sasuke the truth.

He had to. Sasuke would find out, and then he might feel that Naruto had lied to him by omission. Like Naruto had put the kids in danger, and Sasuke would never, ever forgive that. That was what was so great about Sasuke. Like Iruka, or the Hokage, but more so.

He still remembered the instant Sasuke had looked at him and seen that no, Naruto didn't know what a sell-by date was. The look that said, 'this kid needs someone to look after him,' followed by an automatic, 'so I will.' Because that was the kind of person Sasuke was. Sasuke didn't want to be Hokage: he thought that Naruto was crazy for wanting to be responsible for the whole village. Sasuke already had enough of a hard time looking after seventeen people. Except he'd added Naruto. And Hinata. And Sakura. Because it needed doing and so he did it.

They were about the same age, but Naruto didn't think that Sasuke was a kid, not the way he was. The way Naruto had it figured, kids were people that got looked after and wanted people to look after them. People to teach them stuff. Naruto had the Hokage, and Ichiraku, and Iruka, and Sasuke and now Hinata. He wanted to become Hokage so the old man could retire and he could look after him, after all his precious people, but that was a 'someday.' When he grew up. He'd be acknowledged and he'd be the Hokage and everyone would feel safe because he was protecting them. Sasuke was looking after people _now_. People felt safe because Sasuke was protecting them, even though Sasuke had only just made genin. Even though _Sasuke_ didn't feel like they were safe just because he was protecting them. He was just protecting them.

Naruto had thought that it was the Hokage position and hat that did it, but maybe it wasn't rank. Maybe it was just what you did. Sasuke didn't go to an adult when he needed help, he was someone people went to. Naruto wanted to learn how to be like that.

But he couldn't start by keeping this to himself, trying to solve it himself. Not when it might be endangering everyone else.

He didn't think that Sasuke would make him leave. Not when Iruka had accepted him. Not when the Hokage, who knew the most about it, felt safe with Naruto being in Konoha, where the people _he_ protected were.

But he'd still been kind of nervous, so he'd done lots of stuff that morning to remind Sasuke of how awesome he was. Except he'd ended up knocking Sasuke out. Which had been great at the time, but now he had to tell Sasuke how he'd passed and learned that jutsu and why the ANBU had come by and almost demanded to search the grounds for him instead of taking Sasuke's word as clan head that he wasn't there.

So he'd explained about Mizuki, and how stealing the scroll had been way too easy, and Iruka, and, well…

Sasuke had frowned and looked a bit angrier than he already was because Mizuki had messed with one of his people when Naruto mentioned the Kyuubi, but hadn't said anything so Naruto had gone on. When it was over, he said four words, stood up, and motioned for Naruto to follow him.

They were: "I can top that."

* * *

Sasuke had gotten back to the clan compound late and wasn't surprised that he didn't see anyone. They didn't want to remind him of their existence, in Naruto's case because he didn't want his head bashed in and in the kids' case because they didn't want to be tied up to make sure they didn't follow him to the Land of Wave.

He still did inspections, going by everyone's room to make sure they were there. Mostly just to reassure himself. He knew he should let them avoid him in the morning, because he'd be reminded that they were even smaller than he was, many of them smaller than he had been when everyone had been killed, and then he would have a hard time leaving.

He _had _to leave. He couldn't be some kind of wuss who didn't do any missions. He had to get stronger. Because as he was he couldn't protect them from Itachi, and it might be even worse than that. He wouldn't know until he found himself in real combat.

Closing his eyes for a minute after closing the last door, he went to the kitchen, saw that everything had already been packed, and then went to his room.

Most other people wouldn't have been able to sleep. Sasuke already knew one lesson combat veterans learned: sleep when you can. Insomnia and pointless worry were luxuries he couldn't afford. They got in the way of the mission.

* * *

Kakashi was early, and bookless. The Hokage had _not _been pleased. He had more copies of course, but he'd wait until he was out of sight of Konoha, just to be on the safe side.

In his experience, his genin were irrepressible. He'd been so proud when he'd heard about what they'd done! And Gai's squad had been hired for cleanup! But Naruto was glancing at Sasuke worriedly, Sasuke was in "Hn," mode, and Sakura had flipped out when Tazuna had insulted Sasuke's ability to get him there safely.

One moment she was going through a gear checklist, all by-the-book rookie, then the next minute she was like a different person. One willing to tear his head off, client or not.

Once that had happened and Naruto determined that Sasuke wasn't going to try to kill him he started to chatter and things got less depressing. Honestly, these were genin on their first trip outside Konoha and their first C-rank mission. They were supposed to be having fun and being impressed by the novelty of it all. Proud of themselves.

Well, he'd figure it out eventually. First things first: putting Sasuke in a situation that would awaken his Sharingan. Ah, up ahead, that looked promising.

* * *

Kunai plus twenty meters of metal wire plus a D-rank Raiton Jutsu plus a suspicious puddle equaled two irritated and surprised but not actually wounded or anything enemy ninja.

Feeling that she'd done her part by springing the trap, Sakura pulled Tazuna behind a tree and looked around for some logs she could use for the substitution jutsu, just in case those guys tried to charge right through Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi while they might still have the element of surprise.

* * *

Naruto's hands froze, almost in the seal for kage bunshin. He'd been faced with killer intent before. With hatred before.

And he had all the wrong habits, because he wasn't allowed to attack the people who hated him. People who didn't hate him, sure, he could spar with them, play with the ANBU, but from toddlerhood it had become an ingrained reflex to _run_ when faced with killer intent. Retreat. Find a better position or Old Man Hokage if they kept following him. Except Sakura and an old man were behind him and Sasuke and Kakashi were beside him, so running was the last thing he should do.

It wasn't fear that froze Naruto in his tracks, but it was something akin to stage fright, the need to restrain the primitive fight-or-flight reflex. His conscious mind was able to restrain the automatic response, but it was a moment-by-moment struggle and he wasn't able to push himself over the edge into going against all of what he had learned about how things worked and _fighting _them until he got hit by a weapon (poisoned, he noted vaguely) and jumped back.

That was enough of a 'retreat to secure ground' that his body felt secure again, that things were going the way they were supposed to, and he was able to actually get control and start fighting.

Except they were dead before he'd done anything except summon the Ramen Knights to help keep them pinned down and start to jump backward to ask Sakura if she knew what to do about this poison.

* * *

They had hurt Naruto. They had attacked his clan. That was not. Fucking. Acceptable.

Like Naruto, Sasuke had an ingrained set of combat responses that weren't right for this situation. Weren't right for anything. Because they weren't his.

Itachi had shown Sasuke how he'd killed the clan. The Tsukiyomi was a genjutsu that enveloped all the senses. Sasuke had felt his own hands form the seals. Lift the sword. Felt the chakra flow in his own body and eyes. Like a kata performed over and over, it had become engraved on his body.

Like something seen by the Sharingan.

The Sharingan was activated by death. Chaos, destruction, loss, betrayal. Sasuke hadn't watched his best friend die and felt responsible. He'd watched _everyone_ die and felt responsible.

Not as a child, no, what Itachi showed him hadn't activated the Sharingan then. Because he'd been a child. He hadn't been responsible, he hadn't understood what was going on. It definitely wasn't his fault.

But then he'd taken responsibility for the survivors, and learned that fault and responsibility were not the same thing. They were his clan. He was responsible for his clan. Regardless of whether or not he could have done anything to change the outcome, even though he hadn't been at fault he was still responsible for it. That was what taking responsibility, what trying to take control _meant. _This was his clan. These were _his _people.

And that was what triggered the flashbacks. That was what made him fight within his own mind not to follow the pattern, not to lift the sword, not to form the seals… But it still happened the same way.

He killed his father, in those visions. His mother. ShigureKaitoTohruRanShinobu… Everyone.

No matter how hard he tried not to, and he had to try, because they were his, dammit.

Any Inuzaka could tell you that humans are pack animals. The pack is life.

The others had activated the Mangekyo Sharingan, in the end, by selfishness. By weakness. By choosing to commit that murder, they came to see that they were willing to kill even the thing they loved most for power. And by seeing that the person they saw as most like themselves could die, they themselves became afraid of death. They hadn't lost, much less sacrificed, what they loved most. Because they couldn't have chosen to sacrifice those friends unless there was something they loved more than them.

Sasuke wasn't afraid of death. He didn't want to die, he had stuff to do, but _better death than failure. _Better death than watching anyone else die. Better death than failing to protect that which he loved.

Sasuke had watched, over and over, as they died, and they had _not _been sacrifices he was willing to make.

* * *

"That's… messed up, but how is that worse than the Kyuubi?"

"Your demon is sealed away by the Fourth. Iruka was probably right. You aren't a demon. But to create the Sharingan, our ancestor mingled Hyuuga blood with demon blood. So we can't say the same." Sasuke looked around the shrine once more, knowing that in the end this was why Itachi had killed the clan, this was the source of the slaughter and madness, and wanting to destroy it all. But that wouldn't destroy the truth.

"You're not a demon." No way.

"I'm not." Sasuke met Naruto's eyes and let his own grow red with that power. "But part of me is." He held Naruto's gaze as, he knew, the dots began to whirl with anticipation, as the bloodlust started to rise. The desire to get him to use a jutsu, to watch him struggle uselessly for his life. Naruto was clever, there would be things he hadn't seen before, that no one had seen before, if things got desperate. It would be _fun_ to destroy that too-cheerful idiot.

Then he blinked and it was gone. "So anyone who calls you a monster and not me? Clearly doesn't know what in hell they're talking about."

"You're not a monster," Naruto insisted, upset on his behalf.

* * *

There were two reasons that Sasuke didn't want to use the Sharingan in combat. That was only one of them. But he couldn't stop himself, couldn't stop his body as he drew on his chakra as he had too many times before if only in nightmares.

He shaped the focus tiger seal. "_Amaterasu_."

Except wait, no, that wasn't quite right… The power hung in the air, waiting, and he felt it almost push his hands into a different seal (dog seal, his eyes noted even though his mind was too confused) before it took. Yes, it had gone wrong, they were supposed to be engulfed in black flames right away, not sliced in half a second later.

This wasn't how it was supposed to feel, how it had felt for Itachi. Something was… not wrong, but… Maybe he didn't have the full Mangekyo, or something? But if he didn't have access to the Amaterasu technique it should have just done nothing, not something completely different. There _was _supposed to be a Sharingan summoning technique, but that was Susa-no-o, not Amaterasu.

Well, it definitely wasn't an ordinary wolf, not with red markings like that, but he'd thought the One-Tails was a Tanuki.

* * *

"_Sexy no jutsu!_"

Before Naruto could wonder what the fuck was happening he found himself in front of a cage.

"Sexy no jutsu!"

"What?" That was the seal on his stomach on the bars, wasn't it? But she didn't look like a fox… Oh, kitsune were shapeshifters, right. "I'm not going to listen to a thing you say!"

"Do you want your friend to get killed too? Sexy no jutsu, before she notices my grandcub's scent!" Before she noticed _her _as well. "She'd cut right through this seal to fight me, and I'm not in any condition to fight her. But you don't her want to release me, do you? If I win, I'll raze your precious village to the ground."

"She's a dog, what's sexy no jutsu going to do?" Naruto folded his arms.

The false priestess Rao laughed. "You'd be surprised."


	7. A God's Life

_Yes, Madara was present at the night of the massacre. He's not present in the Tsukiyomi flashbacks because they're an illusion. If Itachi could put scenes of him killing the kids in the illusion, he could edit out Madara._

_Some fics have pointed out how Tsukiyomi could be used as a training technique. To a very real degree, that was what Itachi was doing there. Giving Sasuke Sharingan-engraved body memory of not only how to use Sharingan techniques but basically a tutorial on how to kill Uchiha. Powerful ninja in general, but Uchiha in particular._

_Sasuke's personal abilities at this point are… he could definitely take his canon equivalent at this stage. Instead of basically just doing kata since there wasn't anyone worthy to train with, he was training the Uchibis and sparring with Naruto, and there's a saying that the best way to learn something is to teach it. This might have been his first actual combat experience, but he's fought other people a lot more than canon Sasuke. And since he was training others he had reason to look up stuff like tree-walking, and Sakura was doing lesson plans as well._

_Against a newbie with only the Uchiha style? Yeah. If this were marital arts, canon!Sasuke would be considered better, since he's better at the style no question. It's been his entire focus. But these are ninja, where dirty tricks and so on are what matters, not perfect form. Theory versus application. Canon Sasuke's learned the moves to subdue opponents and practiced them daily: Uchibi Sasuke's used them daily. Bedtime, bathtime… So, again, despite the fact he's spent less total time training than his equivalent, the author thinks it's still safe to say he could take him._

* * *

Kakashi was a ninja. Ninja did not like surprises unless they were the ones performing them. They were generally deadly. That was the entire point.

There shouldn't have been any surprises when it came to the head of the Uchiha clan, because there frankly weren't enough hours in the day. Not for him to acquire a dog summoning contract, for one thing. Although he could have just found it in the Uchiha jutsu library. Except he'd clearly been using a Sharingan ability.

So the dog wasn't the issue. It seemed like a perfectly ordinary dog, although it was clearly poorly trained, since it was raising its hackles and starting to growl lowly at its summoner.

"Uh, nice doggie?" The animal turned to face Naruto, then tilted its head.

Naruto bent down (Kakashi reminded himself again that the boy was _twelve_, not to mention a boy), and beckoned it over to him. Her, at the moment. "Come? I've got ramen, so don't eat anybody? We can't possibly taste as good as ramen."

It trotted over to him and sat down, wagging its tail. Naruto went down on one knee to pet it. "Sasuke?"

"Is Sasuke alright?"

"Can you check? I'm kind of busy here. Oh, right, I got poisoned."

Sakura folded her arms. "And you were petting a dog in your pervert jutsu instead of telling me?"

"It's not a dog. It scares the, um, that." Naruto held out his hand for Sakura to grab and inspect.

"I'm going to have to drain this." _Damn, _she wanted his healing bloodline. "It could be any of twelve things, and I don't have time to experiment."

"The 'that?' Really?"

"Come on, you're the jonin and you're the one with good chakra senses, can't you feel how powerful it is?"

"Looks like an ordinary dog to me," Kakashi said. So either the kyuubi had gained the ability to mess with Naruto's head or it really was one of those dark Sharingan abilities. One capable of hiding its nature.

He lowered the covering over his Sharingan eye.

The white dog that had looked so brainlessly happy when there were pettings involved started to growl. "No, bad! Kakashi, use sexy no jutsu! It goes like this." Naruto went through the seals slowly, or started to when Sakura stabbed her arm harder than technically necessary. "Ow!"

No, Naruto was _not _teaching Kakashi that jutsu. Konohamaru was bad enough, but someone like their sensei? Who might use it to sneak into the womens' baths? No.

Kakashi hid his eye again, deactivating the Sharingan. He'd already seen the blaze of chakra. He already knew that he did _not _want to anger this summon. There was a sense of 'that's better,' and the dog yawned and scratched itself behind its ear.

"She's not angry now that the eye's gone? Phew." Naruto turned back to normal. The growling resumed. Naruto turned female again. The growling stopped. "Aww, come on! That's not fair." The dog just wagged its tail. Naruto pouted.

Sakura went over to Sasuke again. "He's breathing and everything just fine," dammit, no excuse for CPR. "I think it's chakra exhaustion." Her first time seeing an actual case, so she looked at Kakashi for confirmation.

He nodded. "How long has he had the Sharingan?" Had it been a secret from Naruto as well?

"The creepy eye? He told me he's had it since before he met me. It got activated by the flashbacks or something." Naruto summoned kage bunshin now, to pet the dog, make ramen, and try to keep it happy in general. The dog seemed to approve of this. "He doesn't use it, though, so I didn't see it until he showed it to me."

"Why doesn't he use it?" Why did he keep it a secret from the Hokage?

"Cause he's not stupid. It's an eye thing, like Hinata's, right? And Itachi has this thing with his where if you meet his eyes he's got you. So the _last _thing Sasuke wants to do is have a fighting style that relies on looking at his opponent all the time."

"That's smart." The Sharingan read everything so easily that Kakashi had found himself beginning to disregard other cues. He didn't just didn't need to look for them because the information just got put straight into his brain. If he'd started out with the Sharingan he might have never learned that those cues existed, since he wouldn't have bothered to observe them.

"He saw Itachi killing them over and over, so… Everything's got a weak point, like the Byakugan does? Sasuke said that he kept seeing his father and ninja he knew were good do things that seemed really stupid and eventually he figured out that Itachi was doing stuff that he knew would make them make those mistakes and then taking advantage of it. The weak point of the Sharingan is how it makes you think." Naruto didn't mention the demon part. "Itachi knew those weak points, so it was a _lot _easier for him to kill Uchiha than regular ninja. Like rock paper scissors. The Sharingan makes it easier to beat regular ninja, Itachi's really good at beating the Sharingan, so if Sasuke wants to beat him he has to _really_ be like a regular ninja instead of using the Sharingan. You don't fight rock with scissors."

Sakura listened with half an ear as she kept checking Sasuke and dealt with Tazuna complaining about the nearly dying and their incompetence and how one was unconscious and another was in drag. Must not kill client, must not, not even a little…

"And he hates the Sharingan. It failed his family and… stuff. So he didn't talk about it. I heard about it first from Hinata."

If Hinata was here, then maybe the dog thing would look at her instead of him so he could go back to being a he? Hinata was good at cooing over people, too.

"Sakura, start building a litter. We're going to have to abort mission."

"What?" His, her, first C-rank mission!

"Naruto, Sasuke's incapacitated until his chakra recovers, which it might not as long as that summon is here," although it hadn't looked like it was draining him, Kakashi couldn't chance taking a closer look, "and this is no longer a C-rank mission. We were hired to fight bandits, not missing nin. We need to go back and report."

"You mean go back to Konoha?" Lead a Uchiha-eating summon straight to the Uchibis? No way!

"Sasuke's levels are stable, he isn't still being drained. He should wake up in twelve hours." It would have taken Sakura six.

One of the few advantages female ninja had was that while they had smaller chakra reserves, they were able to replenish their chakra faster. While a kuniochi who tossed around large numbers of high-powered jutsu the way male ninja did was asking for it, the female body was built for sustained heavy labor, with energy reserves marbled throughout the muscles for easy access, and, properly trained, they could keep up a fairly steady stream of mid-to-low level jutsu for hours (days, in the case of jonin) without depleting their chakra.

Tsunade of the Sannin's signature technique would eventually come to be considered a female technique not just because of the careful husbanding of resources it required, but because it was almost suicide for a male ninja (other than the clan specializing in energy storage) to use it in wartime or any extended battle. Not only did the focus required mean that it was hard to use other jutsu at the same time, but the lower a ninja's reserves got the less they had available to deal with surprises and the lower their odds of surviving the battle, and a man couldn't use it for a fraction as long as a woman without going in the red.

While normal Konoha tactical doctrine, as revised by the Sixth Hokage and Shiroi no Sakura, was for male ninja to rotate on and off the battle line according to a timetable to keep them in peak condition. That meant that with their resources being replenished by rest and food they were able to constantly spam their strongest jutsu without having to conserve their resources, while kuniochi held the line.

Naruto's sexy no jutsu was accurate enough that he might have noticed the difference if he'd ever started to run low on chakra.

One day, he _would _notice, and since the Sixth Hokage was already legendary for the huge amount of chakra he tossed around, the use of Sexy no Jutsu, generally coupled with scary laughter, would cause smart enemies to run away very fast, because it meant he had had a wonderful, awful idea and things were about to go Beyond the Impossible.

It was never a good sign when someone already hitting you with with an insane amount of jutsu called for even more power.

In the same way, you didn't want to encounter a stacked Konoha medic nin who looked like they were in their twenties, unless you were in a bar or something. No one knew if Tsunade had ever actually uttered the famous words, "My boobs give me super strength!" (if she had, she'd been too drunk to remember it the next morning) but thanks to some metabolic quirks, after someone had used the technique for a few years, the ratio of chest to waist could indeed be used to give a fairly good estimate of their skill level.

It was Hinata who combined it with the Gentle Fist to create the ultimate techniques Armor Piercing Slap no Jutsu, Bright Slap no Jutsu (which combined it with an explosion), the gender-switch Bitch Slap no Jutsu (Naruto's idea), and St-Fu no Jutsu, which destroyed the ability to fight back not only by blocking the tenketsu but by removing the ability to speak.

Hiashi _really _shouldn't have said that about Naruto.

At any rate, Kakashi agreed to camp there until Sasuke woke up, since if there was a man down it was better to at least have a secure perimeter than to be on the move, even if Naruto's kage bunshin ability meant that he could carry Sasuke and fight at the same time.

Meanwhile, Naruto discovered that no matter how many Orange Bombshells he surrounded the glowy white & red not-doggie with she, well, technically he according to Sakura but there was some sheness about her somehow, would still start growling if the real him became a him again. It was so totally unfair and he knew she was laughing at him, with her tongue hanging out like that.

"Come on, you're a jonin, you've got to know some way to make her go away!"

"Normally, summons disperse when the summoner has no more chakra available, and most of the techniques try to speed that up or disrupt the connection. She's not drawing on Sasuke, and for the moment she seems pacified." So, powerful or not, she was a much less immediate problem than the fact Gatou had surely sent other ninja after Tazuna. "Here." He gave Naruto some dog treats. "Why don't you see if she knows any tricks?"

* * *

"So she's a goddess?" To Naruto, raised among a bunch of believers in small gods, that wasn't all that big a deal. A god that someone really liked someone else might ignore or even not believe in. Naruto had heard of Amaterasu, but it wasn't like she was one of his personal gods. "Can Sasuke summon Orange-sama or Ramen-sama?" Because that would be awesome.

Rao just laughed, feeling them bounce. It was good to have an audience, even if he wasn't fool enough to trust her. She'd just have to wait a few years for the off-switch a good pair of boobs could hit to finish being installed into his male brain. "Amaterasu, mother of us all."

"What's she the goddess of, anyway? Perverts?"

"Well, her eyes _do _watch just about everything… She's the sun goddess."

"So why is she a male wolf? And why is she making me stay in sexy no jutsu?"

"She's a god. If you ever attain godhood, then you too can do whatever you damn well feel like and strike people who dare question your judgment with lightning. As for her sex drive, it's legendary, literally. You don't have that many children unless you enjoy pleasures of the flesh. One time she locked herself in a cave and didn't come out until the goddess of wild partying started doing a pole dance. Then she was out of there so fast she left skid marks instead of flowers behind. When the one you call the Juubi invaded this world and the Celestial Plains, he did so on board a ship captained by one of the Moon Tribe, who are famous for their beauty. She was too busy drooling over him to notice a thing."

"The moon tribe? Are they demons too?"

"We wish." Rawr. "But no, he was too busy to notice anything either."

"Busy?"

She laughed again, wishing she could flutter her eyelashes at him from behind a fan. "He had the radiant goddess – not in that form, of course - practically pawing at him in heat. Who do you _think _he was busy doing?"


	8. Dogged

_Snake… When you find out what it does, you'll realize it's a horrible pun. The author makes no apologies._

* * *

A ninja awakened suddenly has two responses. Or, at least, the still-breathing veteran ninja do.

Type 1: immediately attack anything nearby. They're probably hostile, and if they weren't, well, then they should have known to only wake ninja up from a safe distance.

Stupidity kills. It's best that it kill the stupid.

Type 2: play possum until you have some idea what's going on. It's better not to go off half-cocked, and if you're in enemy hands it's better to gather yourself before the interrogation starts.

Sasuke would definitely have been a type one, what with the flashbacks, if he hadn't had kids coming into his room to hide from nightmares. The fact that, being future ninja, they were generally carrying at least a kunai in case the monster in the closet attacked just made it easier to mistake them for enemies.

However, ninja needed to act fast, so Sasuke had gotten his friend/foe recognition system trained to function while half-asleep. Meaning, since they were talking, he immediately identified the lap his head was lying in as Sakura's and that there was one Naruto over that way and a cluster of others, all female, over that way. Kakashi and Tazuna took another second.

"No, sit, stay! Don't go over there, I have a doggy bone?"

There was an animal heading his way from the cluster of Narutos. They didn't seem to be in combat, so Sasuke opened his eyes.

The _extremely dangerous _not-wolf growled, and before Sasuke had time to remember that he'd seen it before falling unconscious his eyes spun and his hands formed the rabbit sign. There was one opponent, which had met his eyes, so the optimal one was, "Tsukiyomi."

The word sent a chill through him. He remembered that word, that jutsu, that night. Those three nights trapped in illusion, the way he was trapped in his body now as it performed the jutsu. Even if that… thing had knocked him unconscious, it didn't deserve…

…to have a stick dropped on its head?

His hands were already forming another sign, since that one hadn't worked. Snake. "Susano-o." Once again, his body braced itself for another massive chakra drain. Once again, the result was massively underwhelming.

A stream of water arched from his hands. Great. Now he had an angry, _wet _dog.

His hands started to form the dog, but this _was_ the dog. Rabbit, but while for Itachi that had been a killer genjutsu he had gotten a_ stick_. That wouldn't eliminate the enemy.

The pre-programmed responses kept being triggered, then vetoed, triggered, vetoed, his mind watching in confusion and mounting anger as his body was trapped in an infinite loop.

What had Itachi been thinking? How was Sasuke supposed to grow strong like this?

…Itachi had likely been planning to return when he made genin, to remove these compulsions and perhaps place new ones. Itachi would be coming to find him. Soon.

And the dog was _laughing at him_, tongue lolling out.

"Sasuke, she probably won't attack you if you're in sexy no jutsu. Sasuke?" Naruto waved an arm in front of his face.

The instance his view of it was broken he blinked, loop disrupted. When Naruto's hand swung back he dropped and rolled to come up facing in the opposite direction and close his eyes. "Naruto, get the blindfold out of my pack." His voice was low and serious. "It…" No.

He couldn't tell Naruto Itachi might be coming. He probably wouldn't be killed if Itachi found him alone. He was nowhere near strong enough yet to bother with. But Naruto would try to protect him.

And die.

So he couldn't say that Itachi had probably left this in his head, since Naruto would be able to follow the same trail of logic he just had.

"Oh, right, if it works for Kakashi. That's so unfair." Naruto was wearing a shirt covering the seal, and he still had to be in sexy no jutsu? He tossed Sasuke the blindfold.

Sasuke caught it, eyes still closed, and tied it around his head. He hadn't trained outside where people could see with it on, since he wanted it to remain a secret from Itachi, but for years he'd been training himself to fight blind to avoid that technique. He had no training in navigating a forest blind, but he would just have to start learning now.

It was inconvenient, it sucked, he was going to trip over tree roots and it would be embarrassing, but that was life. It sucked and then you died messily. "What's going on?"

"Well, your summon really doesn't like the Sharingan, or me," Naruto reported. "The jutsu's name was Amaterasu, and she's making me stay in sexy no jutsu or else she starts growling at me."

Naruto was stuck in sexy no jutsu and he had to keep a blindfold on.

Goddamn Itachi. Goddamn Sharingan.

"Kakashi wants to abort the mission and head back to Konoha," Sakura supplied, hesitating. They'd interrogated Tazuna while waiting for Sasuke to wait up, and there was a particular aspect of it that, well, once Sasuke heard it he'd be dead set on going.

"Do you have any idea how she would react to unactivated Sharingan?"

"Well, if she's okay with them being covered… But I think that's mostly because it's funny, or…" the animal had padded over to Naruto. Judging from the movements and the sound of the toss, it had probably made him throw the stick Sasuke had summoned. "She can wait."

If the summon had some sort of vendetta against the Uchiha, they could not return to Konoha. "Do you think she's likely to get bored and wander off?" No, that would be the universe being nice, which didn't happen.

Sasuke had _seen _that summon. With the Sharingan. It didn't need his chakra to stay around. It didn't need anything. And nothing even a jonin-level-ninja could muster was going to make it leave if it did't want to.

Well, he'd wanted to do missions outside of Konoha.

Ok, that layer of chakra was probably grass, and those were trees.

Most Sharingan users never developed chakra senses that accurate. They never had a need. Itachi had shown him how badly it cost them.

It wouldn't help with tripping over rocks, but then it hadn't helped him avoid walls either. He'd just have to deal.

He heard the dog lapping at the water, as well as seeing it with his chakra senses. The water was full of chakra. "That's not ordinary water."

"Hmm. It does smell like sake." Kakashi was immune to a laundry list of poisons. He would have risked tasting it if it hadn't been produced by a Mangekyo technique.

"Sake?" No one stopped Tazuna from cupping some in his hands. "Hmm. It would be very good if it weren't watered down."

"A dog that wants to kill me, a stick for it to fetch, and some watered-down booze?" Sasuke facepalmed. "_Itachi _got black fire, an ultimate genjutsu, and I'm fairly sure the third one was supposed to be a summon." That probably didn't suck the way his did. Itachi hadn't used it that night for some reason.

"Well, it kind of makes sense that you'd get the opposite element from him, when you think about it," Naruto tried to cheer him up.

"It has holes. I don't think it's a stick." Sakura picked it up. "It's a flute."

"A flute. That's _so_ much better," Sasuke said dryly. "Maybe it's a chakra flute. That would come in handy, _if I could play the flute_."

"Maybe it casts a genjutsu." Element, summon, genjutsu thing: that seemed to make sense to Naruto.

Sasuke resisted the urge to facepalm again. If he yielded to the urge to reflect on reflect on how unfair the universe was all the time, he'd never get anything done. The world was unfair. The only thing to do was wait for it to be unfair in his favor. "Maybe if we get the dog summon drunk?" That sort of thing worked in legends.

"That might work." Kakashi had met his teacher's summons. It would definitely have worked on them.

Alright, how had that technique gone? Sasuke opened his eyes: good, he could see nothing through the blindfold.

The better a ninja got, the less preparation they had to do. Although, in Naruto's case, he could do the one-sealed version of Kage Bunshin no Jutsu because he had so much chakra he didn't need to use other seals to make sure it was safe and prevent the drain from killing him. Luckily, Sasuke's Sharingan had been open while his body performed the jutsu, so now it was part of his own jutsu library.

"Could you refill my jars while you're at it?" Tazuna asked.

While they waited to see if it would work Tazuna repeated his story, and as Sakura and Naruto had known he had Sasuke at the part about the little kid who had lost his father and would surely be killed by Gatou along with his mother once Tazuna was killed, to further crush any hopes of resistance. He was weak against orphans: they all knew it.

Kakashi summoned Pakkun to carry a report back to Konoha as they packed back up to continue on to Wave. "See if you can keep her here as long as you can." So they could get a head start.

Pakkun wagged his tail at the sight of Amaterasu, who produced steak from nowhere to share with him. Kakashi wondered what they were talking about, but they left hurriedly as Amaterasu rolled around in the grass, happily drunk.

"Do summons get hangovers?" Naruto wondered.

"Well, they do call it hair of the dog."

"Great, now she'll have more reason to come after me," Sasuke muttered, wondering if that was a rock there and considering asking Naruto to go find him a walking stick since the flute wasn't long enough.

Well, better him than the kids.


	9. Meanwhile, Back At The Ninja Ranch

Sasuke, despite his immaturity, was considered the least annoying Uchiha Clan Head in the history of Konoha by its council. As one of the two founding clans, they had a considerable amount of power and had made sure everyone knew it. After all, precedent being what it was, a power that wasn't used was a power that could be lost. So his predecessors had made a point of doing something outrageous every year, sometimes on very slim pretexts, in order to rub it in about how powerful they were and how they had all these special powers and loopholes just for them.

Sasuke was too busy for that kind of bullshit, but between the challenges to his control over the clan and his support of Uzumaki Naruto, he generally needed to take advantage of every single unfair advantage the Uchiha had about that often anyway.

While no one liked having their power grabs and child-grabbing shut down, let alone his support of the Kyuubi brat, at least when Sasuke raised holy hell there was a reason for it other than just being a jackass Uchiha.

Sadly, his temporary representative on the Council had no such restraint.

Sarutobi sighed deeply, steepling his fingers and breathing out through his mouth. Nose plugs were a necessity during these council sessions, to prevent the blood loss causing unconsciousness and allowing measures to be passed by sole conscious vote.

"Now, children, you know that when your clan head returns you will likely be subjected to disciplinary action." Sasuke would pin them to the Hokage monument upside-down with kunai, in full view of everyone, as punishment for undermining his position and subjecting him to more goddamn council sessions. Naruto would super-glue dunce caps to their hair. Unless he thought this was as awesome as the Uchiha-spawn thought it was. "Don't make this any harder on yourselves than it has to be."

Shigure just grinned, as did the one who had won the brief scuffle over who got to hold the Official Clan razor-edged war-fan. "I could say the same for you, old man. Our demands are reasonable, and as soon as you given in to them this… unpleasantness will cease." He matched Sarutobi's thoughtful pose well enough the Sandaime wondered if Sasuke was really the only one with an activated Sharingan. What other secrets were they hiding?

The aura of threat was ruined when the one holding the fan hit someone else with it, leading to another rolling dust cloud of fists, knees, and name-calling behind Shigure. He ignored it.

"The measure you wish to pass," he'd better call it that: the office could not accede to demands, "consists of having the Academy lunch menu replaced with ice cream and candy. However, what guarantee do we have that you will stop abusing your privileges even if this council were to pass it?"

"My word as an Uchiha that the instant you sign it, we stop calling emergency council sessions constantly so that none of you can get any sleep."

"No good. I've known too many Uchiha."

"They're children, they have to go to bed eventually," Inochi wrote on the note he passed to Shikoku.

The other clan head shook his head and replied. "The Sharingan doesn't only copy jutsu, but how to make things." The Uchiha were the reason chakra pills and exploding tags became common knowledge. "See those small paper bags on the table? They're Youkai Flowers, an energy replenishing powder especially effective on children." And having so many visible, out in the open, was a clear threat, so blatant it was insulting. Not to mention another means of showing off the Uchiha clan's power: They weren't afraid of having the bags stolen or destroyed.

Not just because of the clan's power, no. No one would dare do that in full view of the council: the Hokage and others would be able to see through any attempt to hide who had done it. No one sane, anyway, but after four days of this it was getting more and more tempting.

Sarutobi cursed his softness. First he'd let Orochimaru escape, and then he'd let Itachi's pleas move the heart that ninja weren't supposed to have. 'They're just children,' he'd thought. 'Blaming them for the clan's evil would be as unjust as blaming Naruto for the Kyuubi's.' Riiiiight.

He hadn't wanted to be like the people who hurt the Fourth's son. He'd been powerless to stop them without putting him in even more danger, but he'd had the power to spare the Uchiha children.

Old men needed less sleep, but if it weren't for the fact Naruto would have been heartbroken, the sleep-deprived and therefore legally insane Hokage would have decided then and there that they were all horrible evil devil children and called Itachi back to finish the job.

"I've got the Whapping Stick and yoooou doooon't!" The current winner of the Fan Wars taunted the others, who growled, looked at each other, and charged within reach of the weapon, willing to take a hit to accomplish the mission of beating the crap out of their distant cousin.

He really shouldn't be enjoying watching children injure each other. And yet he was. Sarutobi knew he should be resisting this, that way lay the Mist side of the Chakra, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that seeing them beat the crap out of each other was making it easier to resist killing them all.

After all, it was so much more convenient if they would do it for him.

* * *

Ran knocked on the Hyuuga compound gates, wearing the little policekuniochi uniform Hinata-nee-san had taught her how to sew. "Hello? I'm here to collect for the Widows and Orphans Fund!"

Some of which actually went to those widows and orphans. While Sasuke had been too busy and the others too young to go around forcing people to contribute, 'donations' had dried up, and what was left had been spread around far too many victims of the war and kyuubi attack. Naruto-ni-san had gotten the short end of the stick.

After that last mission, however, they were really back in business, although there had been several covert missions before then.

When the gates didn't open immediately she pouted and pounded on the door with the Policeman's Knock her daddy had shown her. "Open up!"

The door opened at last: it seemed the guard had gone to get Hizashi, who put the usual amount in the bucket.

The Sharingan also helped with reading body language. Hizashi wasn't going to laugh and congratulate her on humiliating the Main House openly, but there were slight twitches of his jaw that would have conveyed the message to an adult Uchiha, back in the day.

Ran actually didn't have the Sharingan yet, so he had to resort to another means of conveying his gratitude.

After Ran cheerfully thanked him for the donation the door closed. As she looked down in the bucket to count it, her eyes widened.

You could knock on people's doors and use the threat of pranks and violence to extort not just money but _candy? _

The ensuing reign of terror by the Uchibi Mafia left an indelible mark on future generations. The Uchiha clan made it tradition that children would collect the donations, dressed up not just as policemen but as adorable orphans, the ghosts of ninja who had perished in battle, and grieving widows to make the whole thing seem more legitimate and make the people who weren't in the know give extra due to having their heartstrings expertly tugged.

And, of course, candy for the little dears who had walked all over town for a good cause.

The Uchibis began to let their friends come with them, provided they begged enough, since they wanted a share of the candy too.

Candy makers, shop owners, people who ran actual charities and children soon caught wind of this, and the practice spread all over the Fire Nation. Supernatural creatures became acceptable costumes, due to misinterpreting complaints about them actually being horrible devil children in disguise.

The Sixth Hokage, far from listening to the pleas of the suffering (was it their fault the stores had been sold out of things that would make them go away?), encouraged the practice. Pranking was incredibly good practice for future ninja, and he had a special place in his heart for children in need.

No, this practice encouraged disguise abilities and was all kinds of awesome. There was only one thing that could make it any better.

More orange!

And thus it was that the children of Konoha were issued a D-class mission to toilet paper the houses of anyone who didn't put some kind of orange decoration on their house.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, the clan's signature Grand Fireball no Jutsu and required development of a fire affinity had nothing to do with the Sharingan. It ran on demonic chakra, not fire chakra.

Perfecting it wasn't the true rite of passage, but rather it was a necessary precursor to the test of courage and commitment to the clan.

"I don't wanna."

"Stop being a wuss."

"This didn't make it activate before," Roku complained, stretching. "And you suck at tying people up. I should be doing this so you know how it's done."

Hiko kept working, tying his arm to the headboard of the bed unnecessarily tightly as punishment for bitching to the person who was currently in charge here. "The victim is supposed to be able to escape, and we mostly do this to civilians anyway." Since no proper Uchiha would be scared in this situation. They knew how this worked. "Now you're supposed to be screaming. You suck at being a helpless victim."

"I'm an Uchiha; I don't know how to scream in terror."

"Well go make some civilians do it and copy them." Honestly. He stepped back from the bed and turned off the light switch. "Alright, places everybody!"

Another person lit his torch and held it under his chin so his head was in creepy shadows. "You really shouldn't have done that."

"Nobody insults Naruto-ni-chan and gets away with it," even if he was only an honorary clan member.

"You broke the Third's law by letting yourself be overheard saying stuff like that. Now, if we were grown up we'd hand you over and he'd kill you. But we're feeling nice, but we'll just let you get away with a warning," a female voice said this time.  
Hiko shook his head, and poked the third one.

"Oh, right, Arson no jutsu!"

"You guys suck at being evil and creepy," Roku said as the 'electrical fire' spread. "Those were supposed to be guidelines, not scripts."

"You should have said something about how if they ran they'd only get a little singed, and maybe smacked the idiot so they'd stop panicking." Hiko demonstrated for Konohamaru and his minions.

"Ow! I wasn't panicking," Roku complained.

"Because if they die then it's a lot more trouble to cover up. Come on, Konohamaru, you're ni-chan's student and the old man's grandkid. You need to stop sucking so bad or else it's going to be embarrassing for everyone."

What kind of future ninja held their camouflage the wrong way up?

"You're more like ni-chan than ni-chan is." Roku agreed, meaning stupidly heroic and nice. "Come on already, at some point someone's going to notice the weird lights, and then we'll have to scram."

"And the civilian wet himself and it's getting stinky in here," Hiko said, kicking the blindfolded, earplugged and gagged bundle of terrified civilian, making him curl up into a ball. "So let's not do any more rehersals than we have to, alright?"


	10. Obligatory Beach Episode

_The misspelling's deliberate: Naruto doesn't know how it's spelled and this is how he would assume it was._

_Fair's fair. If Sasuke's going to end up, 'blind,' he should get a pimp cane._

* * *

The search for gifts to bring home to the Uchibis hadn't gone well: Tazuna hadn't been kidding about the poverty level. Even though Sasuke couldn't see the pinched faces of the children watching them, he could see that their chakra levels were low, even for civilians.

And since hungry kids got cranky and took it out on the people who were supposed to be feeding them, it was one of the things he'd developed a sixth sense for.

Which was how they'd ended up at the shore, where Naruto was delighted to see that the explosive tag fishing method described by the academy's survival course really did work. A small army of Ramen Knights (this was food, even if it wasn't ramen), were gathering wood and setting up cooking fires while Orange Bombshells dived in to bring back the fish that floated to the surface, killed by the tags, and brought back crabs and other weird things they'd never seen before to Sakura to ask if they were edible while Sasuke held court on a handy rock.

He couldn't let them go hungry, but he couldn't let them think it was a good idea to go with strangers who promised them food, either. "Public places are one thing," he said, waving at the bridge workers. They'd set up here since they were supposed to be guarding the place, after all, and Sakura had said they'd probably need lunch too. While they were working on the bridge they weren't fishing to keep their families fed. "And so are Konoha ninja," even with all the closet perverts, "but there are a lot of perverts out there."

He heard an angry noise from one of them. It wasn't hard to guess why. Gatou's army of mercenaries would have gone looking for women as well as taking all the decent food. "Don't go off with anyone you don't know alone. If somebody _does_ grab you," and the children of the bridge workers were obvious targets, "then if you're in public, yell for help. We can't watch all of your homes, but Narutos are going to be doing patrols."

Some of the bridge workers had sent for their families, who were helping Sakura identify Naruto's catches and providing some ingredients. Spices kept, and there hadn't been much to use them on. "Pretend like you're panicking, cry if you can." Crocodile tears were one of the first things learned in the ninja academy. "If you struggle to get away, don't do it hard: you'll just tire yourself out. But it's good if you look weak. People are good at keeping stuff from getting away, but not as good at holding people away from them. So wait for a good moment and lunge_ in_." He demonstrated by smacking one hand against the other. "Use your heads, teeth if you can. Don't use knives. They're a weapon, and they'll take you seriously with a weapon. Never carry one unless you can use it."

"It's not like fighting is going to do anything," Tazuna's grandson muttered. Sasuke got up and wacked him upside the head: not hard, of course.

"Don't be an idiot. Of course fighting works. Gatou's men took control of this town because they're better at fighting than you. He didn't die because he fought, he died because he didn't know what he was doing. So shut up, sit back down, and pay attention."

He grumbled but sat down. "See?" Sasuke pointed at him. "I don't know if your parents say that violence never solved anything," he'd heard that civilian parents said that, "but it's clearly not true. I hit Inari in the head, he sat back down and stopped arguing with me. Gatou killed Inari's father, your parents just took it instead of fighting back. Now, it would be stupid for Inari to fight me, because I'd kick his ass and then make him run five hundred laps up and down the bridge. It's not cowardly for him not to fight me, it's being _smart_. A fight you lose solves nothing, so wait and pick a fight when you can win."

He sat back down. "Now, you're not going to be able to take a grown man, especially if they're trained and have weapons. So, what you do is, once you're out of their grasp, run and get help. What Inari's father _should_ have done was go to Konoha and hire ninja to kill Gatou, back when your parents still had some money. That would have been the smart thing to do."

There was silence, and it took him a bit longer than he would have liked to realize that one of them (a girl, he'd catalogued her voice), had raised her hand. "Yes?"

"Are you going to kill Gatou?"

"Yes: Tazuna only had enough cash for a C-rank but Naruto worked out something with the bridge tolls." Sasuke had tuned out the percentages in self-defense. "Now," he said, cutting off any cheers, "back to the lesson. They'll be taller than you and have longer legs. So what you want to do is make that one hit count so that it'll keep them down while you run away. Going back in for a second one is riskier, because remember, humans are good at grabbing and now they'll be warned. If you can, gouge their eyes out." Sasuke might hate his Sharingan, but he'd grown up an Uchiha and they'd regarded that as one of the worst things that could happen to a person.

"Stand up." He pushed Inari around so they can see what he was doing. "Put your thumb here and what you want to do is push in and scoop. They pop right out."

"Eww." That was so cool.

He pushed Inari so he sat down. "If you manage to do that, then they're definitely down for the count, between the pain and how it's harder to catch someone if you can't tell where they are." Sasuke touched his blindfold. "Don't count on it with ninja, though. In fact, don't even try with ninja: they'll know all these tricks too, and they'll know better than to assume a kid's harmless."

"Like you weren't?"

"Exactly. Now, if you don't think you'll be able to get at their eyes before they get somewhere they might be able to lock you in or tie you up…"

"Mister Uchiha, the doggie's back."

"I can sense that." Dammit. She kept running off places, and he'd thought the kids he'd told to play fetch with her would be able to keep her busy longer. She sat down next to him and he patted her on the head when she shoved it under his hand, feeling resigned. "There are a few other places that you should try going after. Can anyone tell me one?"

"My mommy said to kick perverts in the groin."

"Yes, that will stun them for a bit. However, if you haven't been grabbed yet, and it's best not to get grabbed, don't actually go for the groin. Protecting it is one of the fastest reflexes. So what you do is, you_ feint_ for the groin. It doesn't even have to be a really convincing feint: if they're badly trained, instinct will _make_ them guard it. Then, while they're off-balance, you go for somewhere else. If you actually _do _try to hit them there, that's where their hands will be, and they'll grab you and be _really_ angry with you for trying it. No, you want to go for the..."

"Sasuke, look! Isn't this the coolest thing ever!" Something was shoved in his face by a female Naruto.

"I can't _see_, Naruto," Sasuke reminded her, and instantly regretted it when something wet and slimy was _literally_ shoved in his face.

"It's a sea slug! Like a regular slug, only even better for grossing people out! The sea anenemies are really cool too, they've got all sorts of colors and they kill everything but orange fish with deadly neurotoxins!"

"That's very nice, Naruto," Sasuke was used to dealing with childish enthusiasm, "but I'm in the middle of a pedophile-killing class here." The hand that wasn't on Ammy's head was holding the walking stick Naruto had found him (he'd buy a sword-cane when he got back to Konoha), and he used it to push Naruto away. "Go put it down Kakashi's back or something."

"On it!" Naruto bounced off.

Damn Sharingan. He was on a beach, the Orange Bombshells had to be wearing bikinis, and he couldn't take this blindfold off or it would be obvious that something was wrong, he'd have to explain, and Naruto would be killed by Itachi.

Damn Itachi.


	11. Souvenirs, Check!

_They were 'the seven swordsmen of Mist,' after all. So the author views it as very possible that Freaky Fish Guy and Zabuza got along well enough to go for a beer and exchange current intel at least once after they both became missing nin._

_Also, Good Omens reference._

* * *

"Alright, team, time for a meeting," Kakashi announced after the sun had gone down and the workers and their families had been safely escorted back to their homes.

"Hold, on, let me get changed." After lunch (and learning about the local toxic sea creatures), Sakura had put on a swimsuit and started practicing water-walking. Once again, Orange Bombshells held up towels for her to change behind. She worked fast and tried not to think about how Naruto was really a guy. Then she wondered if she was starting to think like Sasuke and Hinata…

Since she could still hear while changing, Kakashi continued. "I scouted Gatou's base yesterday." From a safe distance, of course. "He only has two other missing nin in his employ…"

"Actually, he only has one missing nin, Zabuza. Haku was never in a village," Naruto interrupted to correct him.

"Zabuza, the demon of the mist?" That… was worse than Kakashi had thought. Still, this 'Haku' having no formal training beyond apprenticeship lowered his threat level enough to make up for it. The strangeness of his chakra had concerned Kakashi a little. If _he'd_ never seen anything like it… "Who slaughtered his entire graduating class?"

"He killed children?" Sasuke's voice was level.

Naruto waved his hands. "it's not like that! In Mist, you had to kill at least one other student to graduate. And he's really nice to Haku. And Haku thinks that him hating that system was part of why he tried to overthrow… Um…" He probably shouldn't be talking about that, huh. "Well, he definitely got any kid-killing out of his system then?"

Naruto wondered, once again, why sometimes he was good at saying stuff and other times he totally sucked.

"You spoke to this Haku?" Now Kakashi was the one quietly pissed at him.

"Yeah. His father killed his mother and tried to kill him because they had a bloodline and he found out. Haku survived, but he didn't have anywhere to go and if he had gone anywhere and they had found out where he was from," Naruto mimed slitting his throat. He understood prejudice. "Zabuza found him and looked after him even though he was raised to hate bloodlines too and it was a real hassle to drag a kid along, what with all the bounty hunters."

"Hn." That… got Sasuke's approval.

"What sort of bloodline?" A bloodline changed matters.

"He can do stuff with ice, it's really cool. There's this thing with all these mirrors…" Anyway, "Haku's really nice. Kinda freaky, but nice." All Naruto's friends were freaks. Except Sakura-chan, most of the time.

"Regardless, if they're in Gatou's employ they are our enemies. Did you tell him anything about us?"

"Only what I had to. That Sasuke was the head of the Uchiha clan and we were from Konoha and stuff."

Hearing that, Sakura face palmed.

Kakashi's hidden eye twitched, ready to use the Thousand Years of Pain technique. "What you had to? Naruto, never give information to an enemy. _Never._ This will make it harder to take down Gatou. Didn't you want to help these people?"

"But they aren't our enemies…"

"They are in the enemy's employ…"

"No they aren't. I found Gatou's financial forecast, he wasn't intending to pay them. That was a breach of contract. So I hired them."

"You hired them?" Enemy nin?

"You hired them?" Without telling me? A second later, Sasuke wondered why he was surprised. "Good thinking." He really didn't like negotiating unless he had to. Too many bad memories and thinking about them made the urge to kill rise. No, dealing with random missing nin and other annoyances was what he'd hired Naruto for. As for payment, the deal was that Naruto could do whatever he liked with the Uchiha clan finances as long as the bills got paid and Sasuke never had to deal with any of it. The fact that Naruto would never let the children go hungry the way he had and was well aware that Sasuke would kill him if any speculation went embarrassingly wrong and caused gossip that undermined Sasuke's bargaining position kept things under control.

"Yeah. I hired them to kill Gatou and come back with us to Konoha to work as bodyguards for the Uchibis. Only if you don't want Zabuza I bet I can find something for him to do, or he can find his own job."

"Why would a missing nin want to join another village?"

"A lot of missing nin are joining villages." Naruto seemed to think Kakashi should already know this. "Well, I think what really decided it was that he was worried about Haku. The two main guys gathering missing nin, well, one of them _really_ wants to get his hands on young boys with bloodlines and the other one Zabuza got warned away from by this other missing nin he knew. Something about this one guy wanting people with strong elemental affinities to eat their hearts or something."

"You want Konoha to grant protection to the Demon of the Mist?"

"Not Konoha, Sasuke. Well, old man Hokage probably will too. We don't get along with Mist anyway since they're a bunch of jerks. And people are crazy about bloodlines."

Sakura nodded. "So… this Haku. What's his blood type?" Inner Sakura smiled like a shark, holding syringes between all her fingers, fanned out like kunai and ready to throw.

Naruto mistook that for a question about Haku's personality: blood type was considered as much a predictor of that as sign. "I think you'll get along great. You like a bunch of the same stuff." Like clothes and flowers and girly stuff.

Sasuke held up a hand to get her to quiet down for a minute. "As head of one of the founding clans, I can take in whoever I please. However, as possessor of a bloodline, isn't he entitled to…" he left the blank for Naruto to fill.

She nodded. "All sorts of stuff, but the paperwork will probably take forever."

As long as Sasuke didn't have to do it. By this point, Naruto was better at writing his signature than he was. "I'll need to interview them." Before they're allowed into the compound. "Where are they?"

"A half-mile that way, and they've got Gatou's head with them. You'll like them. Zabuza's like you, only not as awesome, and Haku's a lot like Hinata."

"Naruto, I can't tell what direction you're nodding at." Not yet, anyway.

* * *

Five minutes after meeting Haku, Kakashi's diagnosis was that he was polite, that he was from Mist Country, and that since he actually wasn't female he had to be gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Well, crossdressing was a relatively harmless form of insanity. Could be worse: he could have dressed like Gai.

Sakura's was that he was polite, had good taste in clothing, and was definitely straight. She would have sworn he was gay, except he kept looking up and down female Naruto and blushing but never showed the slightest attraction to Sasuke, so he couldn't even be bi.

She didn't even think of his outfit as crossdressing, just girly. Her idea of 'a man pretending to be a woman,' was Naruto's sexy no jutsu. Haku didn't look like a woman, he looked like a prepubescent boy.

Sasuke, who couldn't see Haku's girly clothing and was only going from his voice and what he said, was amazed. Wow. A polite young man. He'd thought they were a myth. And Zabuza didn't even have any weapons drawn! He had to be one hell of a drill sergeant. And Haku still looking up to him even though he was such a harsh disciplinarian meant he definitely had skills.

Apparently, they called it the Seven Sword School of Child Rearing in Mist Country. It was definitely inferior to the Kenpachi School, but Zabuza appeared to have enough paternal instinct to ignore the stuff about regular beatings. Beating up a child as training was one thing, but beating them for not doing things perfectly just discouraged them from trying, let alone learning how to think on their feet.

"This pathetic little girly thing without even the sense to get out of the fucking snowstorm, what kind of man does that to his kid?"

"If Danzo'd taken them they would have ended up unable to even identify _other_ people's emotions, and what kind of ninja can't read their opponent?"

"They'd have been sitting ducks, like Haku would have been for the next mob. Probably staying out in the snowstorm was the smart thing to do-"

Sasuke nodded. "-surrounded by weapons. We've got tons and tons of booby traps-"

"-Might want to add to them. Word is the sound guy's especially hot for eye bloodlines. Senpai said that was why they kicked him out, he went after the new kid and got his ass handed to him."

"Naruto said something about him going after little boys?"

"Little girls too, but he prefers boys since he'd rather have a male body. That was why I let the kid start dressing like that. Can't believe people fall for it. _That's_ no kind of woman… Hey, Haku! Steal the blonde brat's girl-jutsu!"

"…Zabuza-sama?" Haku looked discomforted.

"You heard what I said. What, you're the one who wanted to get people to think you were a girl. Shit, be a man, or are you afraid it's so small you won't find it again if you hide it for a bit?"

"It's ok, I'll teach it to you." Naruto thought the problem was just that Haku didn't want to steal his new friend's jutsu.

"Haku's pretending to be a woman?"

"…Oh, right, you've got that blindfold. Yeah, it's embarrassing how many people, even ninja, just look at the clothes. Now, the blonde brat, _that's _doing it right."

Naruto nodded. Yeah, she was just that awesome.

"Should we all pretend Haku's a girl?" Sasuke asked Naruto, the official tricky one.

"Yeah, it'll be fun. I wonder if the Hyuuga will try to marry off Neji to 'her?'" That would get them off his back about marrying Hanabi as soon as she was old enough to have children and put into the Branch House (since the terms of Hinata's marriage contract were not yet settled, they hadn't sealed her yet in order to keep their options open). She was his cousin, for crying out loud.

No, more like his half-sister, since their dads were identical twins. The Hyuuga were messed up, seriously. "You'll get along great with Hinata, she loves girly stuff too. Neji's her cousin, so she'll probably make us tell him the truth so it's not creepy, but he'll play along." Anything to screw with the Elders.

* * *

Hinata and Haku did get along famously. They had so many interests in common: looking after their precious people; flowers, herbs, medical Jutsu and other things that helped take care of their precious people; making clothing for their precious people…

Especially Naruto. Especially _female_ Naruto. Haku had a positive gift for designing dresses and swimwear that kept the wearer from noticing how little of her body they actually concealed.


	12. Good Girl!

The trouble with leaving Wave and going to back to Konoha was that it meant going back to Konoha. Where the kids were.

Well, he'd meant to make sure they learned blind fighting anyway. The growling would give them enough warning to put blindfolds on… as long as the current truce held.

Naruto wouldn't mind staying in Sexy no Jutsu form for awhile longer, and he could change back when out of her sight. He often spent a lot of the day in female form anyway, since if he went shopping in male form with Hinata that would make people think 'date' while female form just implied 'prank.' They didn't want her father to figure anything out.

The problem was the… not-animal. Sometimes, when Sasuke's eyes focused on where she would have been if the blindfold hadn't been in the way, trying to read her chakra better, her form… wavered. It was like the better he got at this chakra vision thing the harder it was to read her. Four feet or two? Dog or human? And sometimes it was just like staring into the sun and he couldn't make out anything but power, and lots of it.

Most people including ninja, like Zabuza who had taken one look and retreated, not wanting to take on a boss summon without more information, just saw a white dog. A very freaking powerful white dog, but a white dog. Sasuke and Kakashi with the Sharingan, as well as Naruto (probably due to the Kyuubi), saw a white wolf with flame-red markings.

Naruto had told him about the conversation with the Kyuubi. Now, he was a ninja, so he if he trusted anything anyone said, least of all a biju, he should hand in his forehead protector right then and there, but he could definitely believe there was something strange about this creature. The chakra wasn't normal or demonic, she wasn't an ordinary summon or biju, and there was only one other class of creatures this powerful.

Which begged the question of why one would answer the summons of the Sharingan, unless she'd done it for the purpose of finding and destroying the survivors.

Or just for the hell of it. Paranoia was a valuable life skill, but this was a creature who ran around chasing butterflies, looking at boobs, feeding mice, scratching herself… Maybe this was just some animal god, or being summoned through a demonic power had given her brain damage and a five-second attention span or something. She could generally be distracted by throwing a stick, in a pinch.

Just not the flute. She growled and gave you a look and a threatening chakra flare if you threw the flute, and she'd brought it back with her when they'd met up again in Wave. He'd tried blowing into it, and nothing had happened except confirmation of his complete lack of flute-playing ability. There was definitely chakra present in it, a lot more than in normal wood, let alone dead wood.

There was one chakra weapon in the shape of an instrument like this that he could think of. And, well, according to the legends it had a lot more connection to the Uchiha than she did. So it was a reasonable hypothesis except that it was completely and utterly crazy.

In real life, the gods didn't get involved without lots and lots of organized bribery being involved. If you wanted a miracle, ninja were cheaper. In real life, Madara had been a complete nut job, as the Shrine to Stupidity he'd shown Naruto testified. In real life, the Hyuuga liked to lord it over everyone else and if the Uchiha were descended from _him _it would have had to be through them. If they were, the Hyuuga would be constantly rubbing it in everyone's faces, therefore the Uchiha weren't either.

The Senju, maybe, since everyone knew the Senju were absurdly talented and so modest they ended up rubbing their superiority in everyone's faces, like how they didn't even bother to develop Mokuton into a bloodline, then two generations there was Tsunade's amazing chakra control and they passed that over too. They yawned at things other clans would kill for.

The bastards.

And there were like ten thousand different versions of the myths anyway. The one that said he'd turned the One-Tails into the moon was far from the most outlandish.

The Susano-o jutsu seemed like it would function as a chakra restorer and might have some other effects, but he drew the line at learning drunken master techniques. He would need his head to fight Itachi, and having it clouded by sake would only be a little better than by the Sharingan. He'd test it out later, that was what Narutos were for. Among other things. No, that jutsu wasn't likely to be a problem.

He was tempted to just put this thing away somewhere. If it was _that_, people would want it. Bad. Probably not quite "all the other villages allying to invade Konoha" bad, but he'd have to deal with thieves as well as kidnappers. Lots of them. And Danzo.

Not that this thing was it. Meaning that there was absolutely no reason not to slide the thinner side of the flute in, then let it slide out again as he felt something like a seal activate.

Oh, fuck him.

He could see the sword. See it perfectly, even though he was blindfolded. Not just with chakra senses, but with his eyes. Or so his eyes thought, even though they shouldn't be able to see it through the cloth. That meant a genjutsu. That didn't go away when he activated his Sharingan.

Although _he_ had a sudden, pressing urge to run away very fast when he activated his Sharingan. Anti-demon energy, perhaps even mokuton? Or the legendary sage chakra?

That would be appropriate…

No, a genjutsu was a genjutsu, so the sword could just be a fake, nothing but an illusion. So, probably nothing would happen if he took a swipe at that tree.

Illusions, normal illusions, didn't chop down trees like they weren't even there. Unless the tree had been an illusion all along. He wanted to use Kai, except all the stories about… what this sword definitely wasn't said that was a very, very bad idea.

Ninja were well aware that what they didn't know or couldn't see could hurt them. Many scholars considered this sword a metaphor for that fundamental truth, among other aspects of ninja philosophy. Most scholars agreed that most of the deeds, teachings, and so on attributed to Sage of Six Paths had actually been done or invented by his predecessors, and that he had just selected from the techniques and philosophies of others to codify what counted as a ninja.

Taoist warrior monks, for example, claimed that one of their founding prophets had come from the heavens to grant the knowledge of chakra to humans, and lived for centuries before returning to the heavens, which he would someday return from to kick the asses of the people who perverted his teachings and used them for evil.

Ninja said that the Sage of Six Paths had learned from the Tengu Sage, an inheritor of those traditions, and when the Tengu Sage refused to do anything about the One-Tails but utter some cryptic nonsense ("Pow! To the moon!") and claim that it would all work out, the Sage of Six Paths had, in his first really ninja-like act, snuck into the Temple Hidden In the Sky and made off with their chakra weapon.

Legend said that no one had been able to reproduce the weapon or create anything like it because the design had been divinely inspired. The prophet had communed with the Source of All Things, and the blade had been named for that conversation.

Supposedly the music of the flute was also divine. Sasuke relaxed as he remembered how his attempts had turned out. Of course, it was possible that was only true if the musician actually knew how to play the thing. Randomly blowing into it probably didn't count.

The instrument of creation and destruction, beauty and murder.

The ancient and deadly Pillow Talk.

He took off his blindfold to confirm with his eyes as well as chakra senses that the tree had really been cut through. That didn't look like an ordinary cut, and it looked even less like a burn mark. He held his hand above the blade: no, it wasn't radiating heat. The chakra in it seemed to flow, almost ripple, creating hues of blue and green, although the sword was mostly white.

Then he looked up to see what else he could test it out on.

The genjutsu hit before his brain even had the chance to register Itachi's presence.

* * *

Ninja tried to have a fairly accurate internal clock, although Kakashi's was set to the wrong time zone. It was useful for an amazing number of things, from coordinating attacks and meetings to waking up at the right time.

Sasuke had been buried under an insane workload for a few years _afterwards_, and the only way to get any sleep had been to arrange things to make every second count. If you went at the right time and went directly to the right offices in the right order and had everything prepared perfectly so you could just drop it off, then you could get in and out of the Hokage Tower in under ten minutes without running, looking undignified, or being intercepted by the council so that they could 'see how he was doing,' AKA manipulating his words to try to prove that he was cracking under the pressure and should be replaced. Otherwise, it took six hours, he had to come back later to provide additional documents, and a couple more times to try to do damage control.

Normally it was only Sharingan users or veterans, like Kakashi even without the Sharingan, oddly enough, who if asked what had been going on exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds into the battle would be able to give an accurate answer.

But every ninja needed to be able to notice if they were suddenly missing time. They got brainwashed less that way.

Despite that, everyone knew that time flashed by when you were working on something that demanded your full attention. Sasuke probably wouldn't have noticed that he was missing two, maybe three minutes or even realized that Itachi had already dropped by to mess with his head until he managed to figure out a relatively safe way to test whether or not he had. Probably by looking at Amaterasu with something set up to block his view after a second and seeing whether or not the programmed attacks were still there.

Except he woke up suddenly and saw a mud clone that had probably looked like Itachi before it got sliced into chunks and started dissolving. Amaterasu, who seemed to have a sword that looked vaguely familiar on her back for some reason, was howling victory.

That… needed a moment or two to sink in and start making sense, but there was really only one appropriate response.

That being to say "Good girl!" and make a mental note to have Naruto find out what type of doggy treat she liked best when they made it back to Konoha, because he owed her at least two boxes for this.

She didn't need to growl to prompt him to put the blindfold back on.

* * *

_Itachi's Sharingan had an elemental jutsu, a summon, and a genjutsu. This version of Pillow Talk is the genjutsu of Sasuke's set. Tsukiyomi can be considered the ultimate torture genjutsu, since you can do whatever you want to their head but it won't affect the body, for instance no psychosomatic wounds from three days of stabbity. Pillow Talk can be considered its direct opposite, the way holy water, well, mixed with sake, is the opposite of black fire and so on._


	13. Gimme!

_The author would like to know what you think of the idea of one of Sasuke and Sakura's kids being a pink-haired girl. That would ride around on his shoulder, at least sometimes. Problem is that he's not going to grow up to be as big as Kenpachi, so that kind of limits the age of the kid and the amount of Yachiru references the author can pull off there…_

* * *

If this were the game Okami, little hearts would have been floating up from Hinata's body when she saw Naruto again.

If this were an old movie, she would have run into him unexpectedly and run towards him in slow motion to embrace him as romantic music played.

As this was just a crack fanfic, but not quite that cracky, Hinata was alerted that Naruto was back in town by a couple of Uchibis waving at her from behind a tree. She frowned, and left the D-class mission her team was working on to go scold them for ditching school.

A half-minute later, 'Hinata' rejoined her team (not that Akamaru's nose nor the genjutsu mistress' trained eyes were fooled), and ten minutes later 'Ran' was among the Uchibis who descended upon Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura when they were let out of their mission debriefing.

Naruto recognized Hinata immediately by the force of the hug, and the way she didn't let go but kept squeezing and smiling adoringly. "I'm sorry." If only they could have a four-person genin team! Or a four person team but with Hinata instead of Kakashi… "I brought presents!"

The magic word caused several other Uchibis to tackle him. "Presents?"

"Where?"

These being ninja, they immediately started patting down his puffy jacket and putting their hands in his pockets to try to dig out any presents in a manner that made Hinata blush and quietly wish that she had the courage to do that. In public, too…

Naruto managed to get an arm free to point. "Those are Haku and Zabuza. Zabuza's your new sword tutor, and Haku's got an ice-cream making bloodline!"

Well, he didn't know any techniques to make actual ice cream yet, but they were going to work on it, and shaved ice would be really easy.

It was enough to get the Uchibis to stop crushing him before Hinata fainted from lack of air, anyway. (Although it wasn't so much that she was being crushed as that she was being crushed up against her crush's body.)

"Ni-san! You got us a doggy!"

"I want chocolate!"

"No, I want chocolate!"

"No, make plum first!"

"Hey, look, his sword's bigger than you are!"

"Is not!"

"Is to!"

"I want to pet the doggy!"

"I want a kitty, Aniki! You said that if we wanted to take care of animals we should look after the little cousins, but they don't purr!"

"I want a hawk so that I can train it to rip people's faces off!"

"Ninja cats are way better than dogs! Dogs are for the _Inuzuka_." And the Uchiha were way better than all those other, non-Uchiha clans.

Few people knew that Tora was the descendant of a bodyguard ninja-trained cat that had been given to the Daimyo years ago. Except for the Hokage, which was why the mission was assigned so often. Sadly, no full-blooded ones had survived the Second Shinobi War, and the attempt to recreate the bloodline had been wrecked by the Kyuubi, along with most of Konoha.

"Hey, why are you wearing a blindfold in broad daylight anyway, aniki? I thought you were keeping that a secret?" Shigure whispered to Sasuke under the cover of the others going nuts in distracting ways.

"Later." When we're secure. He clapped his hands together, loudly. "Alright, knock it off!"

The children stopped and all turned to him, maintaining eye contact, or blindfold contact in this case. While others bowed, eye contact was the Uchiha form of coming to attention and showing respect to a superior, since it allowed not only perfect recall of orders, but made it easy for a pissed-off superior to punish them using their Sharingan.

"Tohru." He tossed her the c-rank payment he'd been handed up front (the rest would be coming in later). "Go to the store and buy flavor syrups. If there isn't enough to get all the flavors you want, spar to determine what gets bought _outside the store_. Shigure, you're not going anywhere until you explain why everyone in the tower was glaring at me." In that well-known _why don't you keep those monsters under control _way that, a couple years ago, had meant Naruto but now applied to all of them. "Haku. You're not making anybody anything until I get full reports." And determine if they were getting treats or strung up with wires and kunai. "Nobody gets _any _pets until they've graduated, moved into their own houses in the compound, and shown me that they can keep them clean. I'm already stuck looking after enough wild animals."

Aww…

Oboro and Sagiri tried to hide their relief that nobody would be getting cats. They and Shigure had spent years trying to train their ninja mice!

"Ran, go let Hinata's team know that we're done getting debriefed." And go switch with the real Ran before anybody has a chance to figure out that my 'fiancee' has been snuggling with Naruto. "Anybody who has anything urgent to report, follow me home and do it there. If I find out any of you withheld critical information to go try to get your favorite ice cream flavor, you will spend the next month regretting it. Chihiro, Koori, the missing mist nin and the summon are _not _obstacle course equipment: get off them right now."

Zabuza had been too busy staring at the five-year-old that had climbed onto his shoulder and perched there to dislodge the thing. What the hell did it think it was doing?

"Boss! You're back!" Enter the Konohamaru Corps!

Sasuke sighed. "If you've all decided to play truant today, then consider not getting caught and dragged back to class an official mission." From your clan head.

Regular school was out, which was why Iruka was working at mission dispatch, but summer school = free daycare!

"Naruto, set up a meeting between the Hokage and I, preferably before the next council session, and take care of the paperwork that's built up." You know how to forge my signature. "Sakura, make sure everyone did their homework and is working on their training. Ran, when you see Hinata, tell her she did a good job keeping you guys from losing any limbs. Konohamaru?"

"Yep, boss' boss?"

Sasuke threw a kunai at this head. The blunt edge, obviously. "Situational awareness! As the Hokage's son and future clan head, you should know better than to charge in and interrupt a mission briefing! Also, that should _not _have hit you, it was practically crawling through the air! New clan official mission: The person to hit Konohamaru with the most thrown stuff in the next hour gets their ice cream first! No rocks or weapons, I want things that are soft and hard to throw, and no trapping him or physical contact. Konohamaru, if you get hit by under twenty objects, or hit more people than hit you, you get your ice cream second. You are dismissed early to get a head start: Go!" He clapped again.

The kid traded looks with his teammates and they all took off.

Alright, what else?

He swallowed and wished that he could take the blindfold off and look at them. Sensing their chakra was probably a lot better as an indication of their health, since he was raising them to be ninja and ninja needed to know how to act perfectly well despite injuries, but...

They were all there. All alive. Well, except the real Ran, but she had to be prettymuch intact or else Hinata would have sent her to the hospital and let him know instead of taking her form like this, right? Itachi might have come after him, but he'd left them alone. For now.

Sasuke told himself that he was a ninja, a clan head, and a Uchiha, and none of those sniffled when they saw that their families were okay and wrapped them up in big hugs (not even to pat them down to make sure they weren't actually hiding any injuries). "If any of you are hurt and not telling me, I'm going to kill you," he warned them. It took him another second to clear his throat and say, "Dismissed."

His arm flashed out and grabbed Shigure by the scruff of the neck. "_Not _you."

* * *

Shigure ended up hanging upside down from the Hokage monument overnight, which would have mollified the council members more if his hands hadn't been free so that he could contentedly munch on both a large bowl of shaved ice and an even larger bowl of miso pork ramen.

Amaterasu was pleased enough at the adoration of the young children to allow Naruto to escape to his office, where he happily resumed his natural, male form and not quite so happily began to get caught up on the paperwork.

The Uchibis decided that while obviously no other clan or bloodline was a fraction as good as the Uchiha, if they absolutely _had _to have an inferior bloodline, an ice cream making one would definitely be the least bad.

Sakura went to check on her experiments, and it was when the screaming started that Sasuke relaxed, finally feeling like things were back to normal and maybe doing away missions wouldn't be so dangerous after all.

And then, during their preperations for the Chunin exams (Sasuke had to make jounin as soon as possible, it just wasn't proper for any Uchiha, let alone a clan head, to stay a genin for too long), a sand nin made the mistake of picking on Konohamaru.

That meant war, obviously, between the Kazekage clan's children and the Uchiha clan's. Konoha was _their _turf.


	14. Talking to Himself

Sitting behind his desk, in the official regalia outfit, Naruto chewed on an ink brush and made a mental note to fund a project to develop ramen-flavored pocky so that he could chew on _that_. He lost way too many of his special-ordered orange ink brushes with the tiger-eye ends this way. But he was a verbal thinker and someone who learned by doing, according to one of Sasuke's vast collection of psychology and parenting books (people kept giving them to him as gifts, and some of them were useful).

At first Sasuke had thought Naruto was just plain stupid (stupid enough to _get in his way and ruin all those bento),_which was what everybody else thought too,but when Naruto started to learn stuff really quickly he'd wondered if it was because Naruto's learning style just didn't fit with how the academy taught, and then they'd figured out that the early teachers had sabotaged his education since nobody liked him, which hadn't made sense until Naruto had found out about the Kyuubi.

A couple of the Uchibis were in the 'just plain stupid' category. Of course, Sasuke considered practically everyone stupid, but one of the girls was, well, according to Sasuke people's parents being cousins wasn't _too _bad… Unless their grandparents were cousins too, and… clans had to keep really good track of bloodlines so that people had strong enough powers and good enough brain cells to survive as ninja. She wasn't the dead last in her class, but that was because she just did lots of extra homework instead of chores during chore time. She still had to go to the academy, because a 'not all there' Uchiha was an incredibly valuable kidnap target, and once she got the eyes…

So Sasuke had figured out a plan to make his new retainer stop being stupid and embarrassing him as fast as possible, and then when it turned out Naruto was pretty damn smart (if he did say so himself), well, that just made the plan work faster.

The trouble was that if you did all your good thinking aloud, that wasn't good for stealthy stuff, or writing letters or doing homework without bugging people. And stuff. Or if you were in a meeting with bank people about money, or people you didn't really like, and had just figured out a really awesome way to screw them over, then it really wasn't good to exclaim it to the whole room.

And one time he'd done that when he'd finally figured out a really difficult test question and Iruka had been so, so ticked off at him.

The rest of the time, though, it was fun to be loud and prank and make everyone pay attention to him. Useful, too, because that meant they weren't paying attention to Sasuke while he did his stuff, and Hinata got all nervous and 'umno'y when people stared at her. So everybody looking at him was totally win-win.

He nodded to himself.

"You know, I could just take dictation," Naruto's secretary, Naruto, reminded him.

"Eh…" He chewed a bit more. This was a tricky question. "I think I need to brainstorm. Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

"Okay." He started pointing at clones. "You're good me. You're awesome me. You're inner Sasuke, you're inner Hinata, you're inner Sakura, and you're inner Inner Sakura." The clones nodded, transforming.

"Can I be inner Kakashi?" secretary Naruto asked.

"Since when do I have an inner Kakashi? You can be inner Old Man Hokage."

"Awesome!" That meant he got the hat!

"What about us?" one of the other clones asked.

"You're doing triage on the paperwork." Even though he'd been using shadow clone hawks to send the important stuff to himself, all the intelligence and money stuff and everything really piled up. "Ok, everybody, listen up."

Of course, they were fresh clones, so they knew what he knew, but getting in character was important for this. "Sasuke's got Zabuza to teach him about swords, but he also needs to learn how to blind-fight."

"I'll hit the library," inner!Sakura said, since real Sakura would (and, in fact, already had).

'Sasuke' folded his arms. "I can handle that, Naruto." Idiot. "You just make sure there's enough hours in the day by keeping the idiots off my back, and keep me supplied with sparring dummies."

"I'll help," said Hinata, of course.

"Yeah! He'll be just as good as he was with his eyes before in no time, believe it!" said Naruto's good side.

"That's not good enough." Evil Naruto (or, as he liked to put it, awesome prankster Naruto), flipped her long blond hair over her shoulder and frowned in a thoughtful way that was half-smirk, an expression practiced in the mirror.

"Grr, that Itachi! How dare he use a genjutsu on my precious Sasuke-kun? I'll beat his face in!"

Naruto hoped the real Inner Sakura wasn't as violent as the idea he had of her.

Then again…

"No, weaknesses exist to be turned into strengths," Naruko corrected them. "They gave us orange, and we saw the potential to become masters of stealth and distraction. The only jutsu we could do was the henshin, and we created a jutsu that brings kages to their knees. We need to find some way for blindfighting to be an advantage."

"Hmm." Sakura was the smart one of Naruto's inner voices. "Well, people are used to using sight as one of their main senses. And since he's an Uchiha… Most of the traditional methods for taking down Uchiha revolve around neutralizing the Sharingan."

"We already covered that," Naruto reminded her. "Since Itachi's so good at killing Uchiha, Sasuke's always been training to fight as little like a normal Uchiha as possible."

"Maybe there's some way to stop the Tsukiyomi from getting to the eyes to the mind? That way he could use his sight the rest of the time?" Sakura asked.

Hinata shook her head, "Umno, the eyes and the brain are almost the same. To change that is…"

Secretary!Naruto, now Old Man Hokage!Naruto, was too busy reveling in The Hat to really contribute. The Hat? Was awesome.

"What about Tsunade?" Sasuke asked. "If anyone could do it… And haven't you been trying to get her to train you?"

In addition to being the greatest Hokage ever, it was Naruto's dream to become the greatest medic-nin ever. Because then, between his fighting skill and his healing ability, no one would ever be able to take his precious people away from him. Never ever.

He leaned back in his chair. "I've already managed to purchase most of her debt… the problem is she refuses to go anywhere near Konoha." And he couldn't leave, not when the kids and everybody needed him.

"How's the clone research going? Do you think you could send them to train?" Sakura asked.

Naruto groaned. "Remember what she said? Even if I manage to get her to train me, she's going to make it really painful to try to get me to give up." Not that he ever would. "And she'd be really insulted if I told her to teach a clone." Like she wasn't important enough for him to come himself.

And, well, even though she was important to his dream and everything she kind of wasn't. He liked her style, from her letters and everything, but she wasn't a precious person.

Hinata had spent _weeks_ as a kid sometimes, figuring out how to not just create the perfect gift but do so without her family or even the ANBU even suspecting that she was the one who had gotten it to him. Sasuke had taken on the council for him _lots_. Old Man Hokage had fought to spend time with him and keep him in the academy. Ichiraku made ramen for him.

Naruto had really awesome precious people, and they were way better than an old hag of a sannin, even if she was pretty awesome. And awesomely pretty.

Naruko scowled. "I _still_ can't figure out how to make boobs that big without having them look fake. If only I could study her at close range for a few days, I bet I could increase the effectiveness of the Harem no jutsu by fifteen percent!"

They all sighed, except the two Sakuras, one of whom snorted and the other just rolled her eyes.

Naruto had known from a young age that there were differences between men and women, like the aforementioned boobs, but Sakura had been the one to make him realize how weird women were.

She didn't like boobs. That was, that was like not liking ramen! How could she not be fascinated by the way they were round, and squishy, and…

She wanted to have good ones, but that was like Naruto wanting to have good muscles. It was a pride thing.

And then he'd caught her, and Hinata, looking at Sasuke when he was running around after being drenched by a suiton jutsu and his shirt was sticking to his body, and there was that same look of "Oooh, I want to see some more of those fascinating things," that he'd always associated with boobs.

Sakura a lot more than Hinata, though.

Naruto had asked why Sakura didn't like boobs when Hinata did, and Hinata had blushed and given the ground those 'please open up and hide me?' eyes, and Sakura had told him to leave Hinata alone.

"Umno, I think yours are very nice the way they are," Hinata said, twiddling her thumbs and blushing again.

Yeah, Naruto reflected, he had way better boobs than Sasuke did. Whenever he _did _take a female form, they were all small. Like handful-sized. She looked sleek and deadly like that, but big ones were way better. The kind that looked like you could lean on them and use them as a pillow while Hinata stroked your hair and rubbed your temples and fed you ramen…

"There are other sannin," Sakura said, to turn the conversation in a direction that she cared about.

"We're not letting a guy who writes pervy books and a guy who does stuff to children with bloodlines anywhere near the Uchibis." Even if Jiraya had named a main character Naruto, which implied that he had some taste, anyway. "Maybe Zabuza knows somebody that isn't already working for the red-cloak guys?"

A blood-curdling scream suddenly echoed across the compound. Naruto flung himself out the door, up onto the roof of the courtyard, and across several others before his brain noted the following words. "My _hair_!"

* * *

"It was my one… It wasn't a bloodline, but people would look at it, and I could tell that sometimes they'd think it was, or might be, and then they'd take me seriously even though I was from a civilian family," Sakura sniffed, not even touching the cup of tea Hinata had made her.

"You left a dangerous experiment like that brewing _unattended_ in _my_ compound while the _children _were here?" Sasuke repeated yet again, still scowling furiously.

"Hey, it's not so bad," Naruto tried to reassure her.

"I look like Kakashi!" Sakura buried her face in her hands, sobs resuming.

Hinata rubbed her shoulder. "It's not gray at all, Sakura-chan, and white is a very respectable color for a ninja. Why don't we go buy some hair dye, and no one will ever know."

Sakura shook her head. "You can't find dye that color, it always looks terrible." She'd been dreading when she got gray hairs. "It's not just one color, it's strands of several colors mixed together. If it's all pink it just looks wrong." Like a tacky, obvious dye job…

"Well, at least it will grow back?" Hinata tried.

Sakura's silence was suspicious.

"…What were you _doing _in there?" Sasuke demanded, fed up.

"…just something for a disguise jutsu, like I told you. Make-up has limitations." And a realistic fake tan would earn a fantastic amount of money, especially since Naruto had promised to help her market anything she came up with. "I came up with something to remove pigmentation first, since it's a limiting factor and it's a lot easier to build on a baseline than create jutsus with a wide range of starting points…"

Now _Sasuke_ blanched. "And that stuff is still floating around in there?"

"Ni-san! Shigure turned into a ghost!" came from outside.

Sasuke cursed under his breath and whirled around. "Poison gas containment procedures!"

Sakura frowned. "It doesn't work like that."

"Can it you brats! I am not in the mood for you to act like Naruto!" There was giggling outside. Sasuke sighed. "Well, good luck with phase two." He stood up.

"Hey, wait! Look!" Naruto titled Sakura's head up. "You've got red eyes, like Sasuke!" That was pretty cool. Well, orange eyes would be even cooler, but the point was to cheer her up, after all.

Sakura would never figure out how to exactly reproduce her old hair color. Even when it was dyed strand-by-strand, the hairs would come in white at the roots. Her many attempts eventually became legend: Shiroi no Sakura, who dyed her hair in the blood of her enemies. (She never actually did, but she did use it as a threat…)


	15. Sad Panda no Jutsu

_Sekhmet in Egyptian mythology: a lion goddess who was wiping mankind off the face of the earth, and the gods couldn't stop her until someone had the bright idea to mix together blood and beer, her two favorite drinks, and she got totally wasted, enabling the other gods to subdue her. Beer-making was very important to the Ancient Egyptians. Probably not because of a belief that she would return to kill them all unless they kept the booze coming, but even so._

_Orochi was subdued by just booze and water._

_Lightweight._

* * *

"Is it safe to go down yet?" Kankuro yelled up at her, hanging off the edge of Temari's fan.

"We can get out of range, but we'll have to make our report." So they couldn't just land: they needed a good view of what was happening.

Oh, sure, she could let Kankuro down and then fly back, but if she had to suffer then he was damn well going to suffer with her.

The mission had all started out so well. Go to the Chunin exams, kill enemy nin, try not to be killed by Gaara. Then some kids had run by playing ninja.

More specifically, playing couriers trying to transport the Ancient Secret Shaved Ice Flavoring Syrup of Ultimate Power back to the stronghold of the Awesome Clan while under attack by enemy nin from the Village Hidden In Really Bright Orange, known for wreaking havoc and migranes upon anyone who saw them. And then there had been something about the fanatical followers of the god Ramen-sama trying to steal everyone's pocket money to donate to Ichiraku Temple, and future Hokage Konohamaru's kuniochi bride seeking vengeance upon the Dark Princess Hanabi for failing to say thank you to him for being nice enough to give her some lychee flavored shaved ice.

Kankuro hated kids, and would have yelled at them to get out of his way, but then he'd realized that they were using actual weapons, and doing things like throwing each other through glass windows, and that changed it from annoying to fucking hilarious.

Temari hadn't been so enthusiastic about watching little kids try to injure each other (even though there wasn't actual killing intent coming from anyone but the little girl and her clones trying to go after Hanabi, but it wasn't like she had a chance), but then the kuniochi who had been practicing her healing jutsu on the injuries gave her some shaved ice, and she decided that this was a good opportunity to gain intelligence on Konoha.

Also, free apple shaved ice.

And when Gaara had caught up with them, he had been too busy staring to even contemplate trying to kill them.

He had even accepted shaved ice from the healer, who was the Light Princess Hinata-sama, avatar of the goddess of Being Really Nice, according to the little girls in elaborate kimonos with hidden body armor and razor-edged fans who were carrying around the train of her kimono.

Hinata blushed and shrugged. It was nice to play dress-up sometimes.

"Isn't she the goddess of healing?" The other little girl asked the one who had made the introductions.

"Mine's funnier."

The second girl shrugged and tugged at Hinata's sleeve. "Nee-san, have I done enough learning how to be a proper young lady yet? I wanna go join the Evil Cult of Blood Ramen so I can do more kunai practice."

Also because while the Uchibis quite liked ramen, they hadn't understood why Naruto liked it _that _much (with their demonic ancestry, Uchiha were all about the meat. And fire.) until a certain… _discussion _with some fellow academy students about ownership of the swingset had led to the discovery of blood flavored ramen.

"Of course you can, Sagiri. It's important to have more for lunch than just shaved ice."

"Aaah!" Another young ninja up to them, screaming. "My eyes! The ancient evil has awakened! I can feel my sanity dribbling out my ears! The laws of the universe have been overturned, and, um, that." He tried to get back into character, waving his arms. "The green beasts have escaped from their eternal battle with the one-eyed pervert sensei and the ice prince! Flee, lest you be turned into one of them!" He pointed. "See how they bring chaos to the cycle of day and night itself with their unnatural revels!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

There was indeed a sunset behind them, courtesy of Amaterasu using her celestial brush to cause nightfall. She then put the sun back in the sky, wagging her tail.

Another blonde kuniochi was standing carefully away from them, rolling her eyes.

"We must help these children with their passionate dedication to training!" Gai announced to his team.

Neji nodded silently and went to the side of the 'ice princess.' Hanging out with another ninja was much, much better than his _uncle_ trying to tell him to act in a way that would make his little cousin Hanabi not complain too much about marrying him once Hinata became the heir. He generally didn't have to do anything but stand there while Sakura's friend Ino, the Evil Mind-reader or whatever they were calling her, and Haku flirted.

"Do you want to be the goddess of kunai?" the Nidaime Orangekage asked Tenten.

"_Only _kunai?" She was a goddamn weapons mistress!

"Maybe the Legendary Mistress of Sharp Pointy Things?"

Actually… that did have a certain ring to it. "You owe me lemon shaved ice."

"Great!" Naruto bounced off. "Go pick a side, or make your own if you want."

On battlefields, chaos reigned! The more sides and the more switching of sides in practice battles, the better ninja practice it was!

"Ah ha! Now I have the Legendary Strawberry Syrup, the most powerful of all the flavors!"

The others stared at the traitor in their midst. "No it isn't. Red bean is way better."

"Strawberry!"

"Chocolate!"

And thus battle was joined between the Awesome Clan's loyal couriers and the ninja who had just revealed themselves to have been working for the… for _somebody_ all along.

Or at least since thirty seconds ago, when they'd thought of it.

Then, in the scuffle, a bottle of cherry syrup had somehow gotten launched in Gaara's direction. His sand had automatically crushed it, but had gotten soaked with something red that _wasn't blood_.

Mother apparently felt incredibly cheated by this.

The ninja with hitai-ate mixed in among the children had gotten them out of the area as Gaara began howling for blood. Temari had taken to the skies, as had Kankuro whose puppet could be reconfigured into a glider, since the only defense against Gaara was to get out of range of his ultimate defense.

"That white-haired kuniochi has some kind of book open. The black-haired one with the blindfold," who Temari had identified as dangerously cute even with it on, "has pulled back." He'd been trying to turn the sand into glass with fireballs, but there was too much of it. "The black-haired girl in the kimono is covering him," she was hitting the sand and then Shukaku seemed to lose control of it for awhile: interesting. "One of the orange clones is talking to the blindfolded guy… a water jutsu?"

No, that wasn't water that the blindfolded ninja's jutsu had summoned. They could smell the sake even up here.

Sasuke didn't get a chance to make the seals for the fire jutsu Naruto had suggested using once they doused the guy's sand in flammable alcohol before the red-headed Sandnin paused.

Shikaku might have been a demon, but he was also a tanuki. They were bottomless pits when it came to booze, and now he was stuck in the body of an underage kid and before that it had been a goddamn monk. And this wasn't just any sake. This was Eight Purification Sake, the booze of the gods. Mingled with the blood in his sand, there just wasn't anything better.

"Mother has changed her mind," Gaara informed Sasuke. "She now wants more sake instead of blood."

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other. Naruto shrugged.

Sasuke made the snake hand seal again and gave him another shot.

By the third shot, Shukaku was indeed filled with love for all living things, enough to let Gaara have some too.

Enough to hit on the Kyuubi. "_Hey there, foxy lady_."

Rao sniffed. A mere tanuki, daring to hit on her?

"_Come on, you know you want me. Bigger is better, and no one…" _Shukaku's voice was already wavering, and the next shot of sake put him down for the night.

After years of sleep-deprivation, Gaara's body saw its chance.

Temari's eyes widened in shock when she saw him hit the ground: both she and Kankuro cursed when they heard the first snore and realized what it was.

"Hey, where are his teammates going?" Naruto wondered, shading his eyes to watch the fan fly by. "They're just abandoning him?" Because he was like Naruto? Naruto recognized that chakra.

So had Sasuke. "Well, we can't just leave him lying here in the street."

"Sure we can," Sakura reminded him. "ANBU will pick him up as soon as they get off their asses and stop 'observing.'"

"He attacked clan members." Sasuke wasn't going to let idiot ANBU handle that. He sighed, feeling a headache coming on. Being abandoned by people from his village, looking like a little angel while he was asleep: Sasuke knew that it was a weakness to be so easy to manipulate, but Gaara was pushing not just 'little kid' buttons but _Naruto _buttons.

Sasuke told himself that if this guy had been abandoned by his team, he likely had no real attachment to Suna, and if he was so easy for a demon to manipulate than Sasuke should have no trouble stealing a second demon vessel for the Uchiha clan. This was entirely a strategic decision. Right.

Gaara shivered, even though this was a warm day, and curled up into a reflexive defensive ball, looking not like a ninja that was worried about someone attacking but a kid who was used to being hit (and Gaara had always been attacked if he started to go asleep, by ninja the Kazekage was willing to throw away in order to keep Shukaku contained).

That was just playing _dirty_.

As a ninja, Sasuke approved.


	16. Checking In

Theoretically, Itachi wasn't supposed to be anywhere near Orochimaru, by order of Pein. That would have been Itachi's preference as well.

Realistically, even though Akatsuki knew all about Orochimaru's plan to conquer Konoha and were supposed to avoid it, Suna, and Sound until the time was right, once Itachi had found out that Orochimaru was going to be in Konoha he was going to be there come hell or suiton kinjutsu.

So Pein had cut Itachi orders to visit Konoha _afterwards_, since he was in the area, and check up on the one and nine-tails to see if they'd been contained in new vessels. After all, Itachi had been in the area (or at least Wave Country) _anyway_...

Itachi hadn't even needed to suggest that they head in a little early. One of Kisame's old drinking buddies, ahem, missing Mist-Nin contacts, had moved to Konoha. By happy coincidence, they were in the employ of Itachi's little brother, so Itachi had asked Kisame to make sure that he was holding up ok- Ahem, was training to pursue proper vengeance and allow Itachi to get stronger.

So Kisame had wanted to head in early so he and Zabuza could go bar-hopping before any of the bars could get blown up in Orochimaru's little invasion, and Itachi had said why not, since this would give him time to sneak off to see how his little brother was doing.

And report to the Hokage.

And infiltrate ROOT again to make sure that Danzo hadn't managed to replace any of them with an imposter, and visit Shisui's grave, and stock up on hair care products for himself and _mass _quantities of skin care products because Kisame kept running out of moisturizer like an idiot and stealing Itachi's sunscreen so that his skin didn't crack open and bleed. Sunlight was _murder_ on Uchiha skin, what with being cursed demons and all, and dry desert air was just as bad for Kisame. If Itachi got ordered to Suna _one more time.._.

They split up, since Kisame wasn't going to go into any girly stores, which was _why _he kept running out of moisturizer like an idiot. At first, Itachi considered trying to buy a sunscreen without any moisturizer at all, but that just made Kisame slather on even more, and it was hard for an Uchiha to look properly dignified when their skin was as red as their eyes.

Then, he had a better idea.

Once the pretty young civilian saleslady had finished wrapping up his specialized batches of sunscreen, each with different contact non-lethal poison (they were doing marvelous things with itching powder nowadays), put the various antidotes in another bag, and offered the handsome foreigner a place to stay for the night (just as planned: hotels were watched, after all), Itachi began to gradually make his way in the direction of the Uchiha district, casually going from shop to shop, gossipy hormonal woman to loose-lipped intel source.

Then, like any idiot tourist, he headed towards the explosions in hopes of seeing something interesting.

"Hey, mister! Want some shaved ice?"

Itachi stared down at the little girl who was waving up at him with the Uchiha female-style fan that was the clan emblem. The… publically known clan emblem, anyway. That was definitely an Uchiha fan. Razor-sharp edges, designed to make it hard to notice the blood stains… he hadn't seen one of those since Cousin Umi had tried to take his head off with hers. "How much?"

"It's free." Haku needed to practice her jutsu so (s)he could finally learn how to make actual ice cream.

"You're just giving it away?" Did she seriously expect him to believe that? Performing random acts of kindness was so… UnUchiha.

"Yup!"

"I suppose." Poisoned, certainly. Some sort of mild paralytic or suggestible thing that a ninja would ignore as a cute childhood prank but would allow them to ransack a civilian.

The way she was eyeing the logo on his bag, probably hoping it contained make-up or gifts for a girlfriend, made that a reasonable hypothesis.

"What flavor?"

"Cherry?"

"The cherry broke 'cause Okubo's a clumsy idiot."

"Coconut, then?"

"Sure!" She hopped up onto the fence and scampered off.

Itachi found a tree and leaned back under the shade to watch the show, allowing himself to recall happier childhood days. As the future head of the clan, it had been up to him to set an example for the others. Playing 'Kill the Senju' with his little brother, showing the others how to properly perform Arson no Jutsu, getting to bite people's fingers off and eat them while interrogating them for the ANBU since he was too young to really know any better and hey, it made them talk, didn't it?

The Uchiha firmly believed in letting their kids get away with murder in order to train them for getting away with murder as adults.

It really took him back to listen to the sounds of children playing. The chatter, the laughter, the terrified screaming, the death threats, the kunai whistling through the air, the crackling of flames…

Eventually, he'd realized that there was something _wrong _about mass murder and sadism, but he still longed for those simpler days when people who weren't Uchiha had been inferior animals who only existed to play with and steal jutsu from.

"Here you go, Mister!" The girl handed him his coconut ice in a paper cup and scampered away again. He noticed that her lips were stained blue: one of the reasons she was doing this was likely that she was getting to consume mass quantities of shaved ice in the process.

Itachi cautiously took a bite and another. And another, eyebrows rising. Then he began subtly slipping substances from his poison detection kit into it.

Nothing?

That couldn't be right.

He'd have to search Danzo's hidden compounds _especially _thoroughly. Sasuke clearly wasn't on the ball: he should have realized that the girl had been replaced by an imposter just from observing this.

Where _was _Sasuke?

A civilian wouldn't have been able to dodge the child that leaped on him from above, so Itachi didn't.

"Hey, Konohamoron! He's not playing!"

"But everyone who's got shaved ice is playing!"

"He's from out of town, can't you tell by the stupid civilian clothes?" Konoha civilian fashion was influenced by ninja gear, meaning it was much more practical for fighting than that of the traders and travelers who came through.

"They should have told him when he got the ice!"

"..." The Uchiha dropped down off the wall, walked forward, and attempted to whack the non-Uchiha who had downed Itachi upside the head. The blow only clipped his shoulder. "Any civilian who just takes food from a random kid in a ninja town is asking for it!"

Konohamaru nodded. "Yeah, he was asking for it either way. So how come I can't jump on this specific guy?"

"Because he's from out of town and your grandad said that if we caused one more international incident he wouldn't let Aniki in the Chunin Exams! Foreigners aren't playing, except for Gaara's jerk siblings cause they asked for it. Weren't you listening?"

"I was with the four-eyed pervert sensei all morning, I just got here."

"Oh. Kay." The Uchiha shrugged, then leaned down. "Hey, are you injured? Hinata-nee-chan's working on her healing jutsu, and she said she'd give her special rice balls to anyone who helped get injured people to medical care." This had drastically increased the number of injuries, obviously, but this _was _practice and Naruto had told Hinata it wasn't her fault, and it was better to get injured when she was going to fix them up good as new than in a real fight.

"No, I'm fine." Konohamaru jumped off Itachi as he got up easily. The way he'd taken a fall like that without problems alerted them both that he wasn't a civilian: good. "What game is this?"

"Training. Who are we going after now?"

The Uchiha began to tick off fractions on his fingers. "There's the Village Hidden in Really Bright Orange who kidnapped the Ice Princess in order to force her to perform the dark rituals that will bring out the full power of the Ancient Secret Flavored Syrup of Ultimate Power, the Evil Cult of Blood Ramen that's trying to kill her so that there is no power in the world capable of defying the almighty ramen, the loyal samurai of the Ice Prince that are trying to rescue his bride, the Evil Mind-Witch is trying to kidnap the Ice Princess to do unspeakable stuff to her, the Green Beasts stopped destroying the world 'cause they had to run around Konoha on their hands backwards a lot, the Legendary Mistress of Sharp Pointy Things is not letting anybody pass the bridge, the Goddess of Being Really Nice is making more riceballs and the Awesome Clan is going after the Stupid Fan-Girl so that we can beat her up and steal all her jutsu. I'm in the Awesome Clan."

How dare she have a flying fan! The fan was the _Uchiha _symbol, everybody knew that! How _dare _she have a fan that was cooler than theirs? The bitch was going to get _schooled_.

Now that he knew what the little girl had been up to, Itachi was starting to feel the warm fuzzies again. Tricking and using civilians, stealing jutsu, punishing people who dared do anything that didn't show proper respect: it was just like old times.

Wait. That was _bad_.

"What about the puppet jerk? He pushed me off his glider!" When Konohamaru had grabbed hold in order to escape the guy raving about blood.

"He's gone into hiding to fix his stuff, and is plotting to kill the Hokage's grandson for making his best puppet crash so he can't use the really delicate stuff he spent months setting up in the Chunin exams."

"…Oh."

"Don't worry. If _you_ fucked him up that bad, he doesn't deserve to be a chunin anyway." And Konohamaru was Naruto's minion, and Naruto was Sasuke's, and nobody messed with Uchiha property. "Oh! Aniki got us really good seats for the final rounds! He could only get a couple seats last time! Shigure said there was lots of blood, it was _awesome_. Somebody got his lower jaw ripped off by a wind jutsu that flung it into the stands!" Shigure hadn't caught it, though.

"Cool!"

As Itachi observed his clan, Kisame was observing something far more interesting. "You mean they do this every day?"

"Except Thursday. That's Ladies Night."

"Damn." Kisame whistled appreciatively. "Why don't more missing nin join Konoha?"

"They've got all these stupid rules about no killing your allies and shit. Only let me in since they couldn't pass up Haku."

Kisame stared at the entrance to Underneath the Underneath and the barely-armored (let alone clothed) guards flanking it sadly. He was an S-ranked missing nin, and there was no way he could get in there without a bunch of genjutsu mistresses, kuniochi and _actresses_ seeing through his disguise. "Damn."

"According to the kid, it used to be a temple to some Tree Goddess or something that did a lot of 'sacred dances.' The temple's still out back, up that hill, but the club's kind of an outreach program. Ministering to the masses and all that. Plus, a lot of kuniochi used to join the temple to learn the dances so they could seduce people, and now that there's the club they don't have to deal with ninja pretending to be religious anymore." They could learn all that seduction stuff without converting.

"This why the first Hokage built this place here?"

"You know it."


	17. Bloomin' Horde

_Once again, taking liberties with the history of the Uchiha clan for the sake of fitting it with Okami._

* * *

"I don't know what to tell you, Hokage-sama. Every test we can perform shows that he's in perfect health. Better than perfect health, his chakra flow is more natural than it's ever been." The medic-nin, winced, realizing that he'd used the word natural and the Hokage was in no mood for puns. "Really, we can't find anything wrong with him."

The Hokage just gave him a level stare that dragged on for several uncomfortable seconds. "…Except for the tree growing out of his head."

Yeah, except for that. "We've been able to determine that it's a peach tree?" the medic-nin offered, feeling more was expected of him.

"I stand corrected." The Hokage nodded. "Except for the _peach_ tree growing out of his head."

"Um, yes." There was a pause. "…Sorry, sir."

Tenzou Yamato was used to being regarded as an experimental subject and talked about as though he wasn't there. He was also a ninja, and a ninja was doing it right when people didn't realize they were there.

The Hokage reflected, yet again, that Konoha's medical establishment had really gone downhill since Orochimaru's fellow mad scientists left. Recently, there were a lot of up-and-coming young female medic nin, since Tsunade and Sasuke had both made it look like an attractive profession, but if this was the caliber of their instructors?

Well, one good thing might come out of a tree spontaneously popping out of the top of Tenzou's head one day and blooming in the street: Tsunade had always felt responsible for Yamato, since her teammate had done this to him with her family's genes, so sending her a request for her medical help might be enough to make her return to Konoha, at least temporarily.

Tenzou was likely the closest thing she'd ever have to a son, since her fiancée had died and Shizune wasn't exactly equipped to become a father.

* * *

It was disappointingly easy to infiltrate the young Uchihas' training games. Yes, they had gone to fetch an adult to look him over, but that adult was a twelve-year-old genin's clone, who had looked Itachi's imperial purple and Tyrrian scarlet silk ensemble (actually, he _had _stolen it from the head of a brothel) up and down, given him a thumbs up, and said, "I _like _you!" before continuing on down the street with twenty tubs of rice balanced on his head, at least two of them with ninja kids hiding in them, waiting to ambush their prey. Using chakra to push weight up and away from you was a fairly obvious derivative of the water-walking exercise, but it was still a good way to train.

Sasuke's accountant's outfit was more than a little over the top and jarring itself, but the thing that Itachi considered actively _wrong _about it was the emblem on his back.

It was the Uchiha fan, alright, but it had an orange spiral on top of it. The Whirlpool symbol, the one Konoha regarded as a symbol of eternal brotherhood and friendship and all that rot.

This guy's personal coat of arms meant 'friendly/trustworthy/loyal Uchiha?' That was just so, so… _Unuchiha_. It was like he'd gone out of his way to find the symbol that was the exact opposite of everything the clan stood for. It was _brainbreaking_.

If Itachi hadn't already been eternally grateful to the Kyuubi's vessel for keeping Sasuke from cracking under the pressure and flipping out and starting massacring people at an even younger age than he had, that alone would have made him like the kid. He had _style_.

Obviously, joining the Awesome clan was the best way to gauge how they thought clan members should act, even if it was a play version.

"Ok, so we're going to yell 'For the Clan!' _after _we all start attacking her." Shouting the battle cry _before _you started attacking was for people who fought fair and other idiot losers.

"Wait, if this is a real army operation, shouldn't we be yelling, 'For the Horde?'" Like in the days the Uchiha had gone all over the continent looting and plundering. And burning stuff.

"Well, yeah, that was how it was in the old days, but we don't have a horde, moron. There aren't even twenty of us and most of them are on other teams."

"Naruto-ni-san has a horde."

"Yeah! Let's go borrow his!"

"Hey, Red!"

Itachi generally disguised himself as a redhead, since the pale skin worked with that.

Turning around, he glared at Kisame, in a way that asked, '_What are you doing here? Can't you see I'm trying to collect intelligence and find an opportunity to use Tsukiyomi on the one-tails' jinchuruki's sister to make It easier to secure him?'_

"Did you find us a place to stay?"

Alright, that was it. "For the last fucking time, Ki-sama!" It was only one letter off from Kisame. "I am your trading partner, not your gigolo! Find your own goddamn women, and buy your own goddamn moisturizer!"

"…so you didn't find us a place to stay?"

"I found _me _a place to stay." And women.

The Uchibis were entirely distracted from their battle plans by this interesting scene, and sat there munching shaved ice and admiring the daring of Red-san. People didn't use that kind of language in front of them since Sasuke had threatened to burn people's mouths out with fire if they corrupted the children's minds any more than they already were.

"Don't be like that. I got Zabuza here to agree to show you the orange brat's girl jutsu."

"…What?" Was Kisame implying that Itachi wasn't capable of stealing his own goddamn jutsu? He had _better _not be. Pein had ordered them not to kill or possess each other, but while Itachi and Kisame got along so well mostly _because _they weren't afraid to get on each other's nerves or act in retaliation without crossing the line, Kisame damn well knew that the Uchiha clan was Itachi's sore spot and that if he pushed Itachi too far, Itachi was going to maim the bastard and find someone to make him some shark fin soup.

"Come on, it'll be easy for you. You already…"

"Hey, mister?" One of the little ones tugged on Kisame's sleeves: the surprise had made him stop talking and stare.

"What, kid?"

"Red is in the Awesome clan right now. If you insult him, then we gotta kick your ass."

"Just play along," the man who was probably Zabuza told him. "Don't do anything a medic nin can't fix, but other than that?"

Heh, that sounded fun. "Awesome Clan? I don't care about your stupid awesome clan. What are you going to do about it, punk?"

Kisame immediately found himself buried under blondes in bikinis.

"For the Horde!"


	18. So Uchiha

"Naruto!"

Sasuke whacked the first Naruto that answered his annoyed call over the head with his cane, dispelling it. "Naruto, get the real yourself down here!" Clones kept arriving: he kept one-hit-killing them.

"Ow! Sasuke, this is the real me!"

Sasuke hit him again for good measure. "Do you know what they were talking about at the council session?"

"Of course, I had a clone there." Henged, of course.

"Then you know about the pirate fleet that's now operating near Wave. A fleet with a symbol that is suspiciously similar to that of the old Whirlpool village, and really similar to your personal insignia." Only without the Uchiha fan, obviously. "Since when do you have a pirate fleet?"

"Technically, they're your pirate fleet," Naruto reminded him.

"I stand corrected. Since when do I have a pirate fleet?"

"Since about three months after we went to Wave. I looked it up and saw that they used to have a ninja village, and it was because they didn't have one anymore and they were a good site for one that Gato set up there, and they needed some people to defend them. They couldn't be ninjas since that would mess up the balance of power, the way Konoha had a totally unfair advantage since Whirlpool rocked and we got in wars because of it, and they needed to be able to patrol the waterways and fight at sea. So, I had to think of a reason for people to be fighting on the water, and since I was investing the clan's money they needed to make a profit, so I was all, pirates! That way, Wave gets defenders, the people that were bypassing Wave before have an incentive to use the bridge instead so they get commerce and we get toll money, and everybody's happy. Except the people who resist when boarded, of course."

"Konoha isn't going to do anything about it for the same reason they couldn't deliberately do anything about Gato: Wave is a No Man's Land since it's so strategic and no one wants another village to found another Whirlpool. So, I don't care about the pirates. I _do _care about you using your personal coat of arms as their flag!" He whacked him again. "Are there any brains in there? If the person who cares the least in the world has already figured out that you're behind it, what happens if someone who gives a damn finds out?"

"I guess, but… Do I have to rename the NaruCave?"

"I don't care! It is your _job _to make sure that I don't have to care!" Sasuke did not have time for the finance crap!

Naruto deflated, rubbing the back of his head. "…Sorry. That was dumb, huh, but I got kind of carried away."

"…Well, of course you did. This is you we're talking about. Pirates. Looting and pillaging on the high seas." Dammit, he was not going to start crying manly tears like that crazy jounin. He hit Naruto again instead. "All they need are war fans and fire jutsu. You're so Uchiha that if I didn't know better, I'd think you were the bastard offspring of Madara and the Kyuubi."

"Actually, they've got fire jutsu."

"…Naruto, did you create an illegal ninja village in order to extort more toll money and have an excuse to create an elaborate underground base called the NaruCave after I refused to let you excavate under the clan district?"

"…Maybe?"


	19. The Corrupt Court is in Session

_A few people have brought it up that I'm focusing on the crack instead of the plot. Well, yes. The word 'crackfic' is in the summary. The fact that I believe that the best crack is reasonable crack that's combined with plot doesn't mean that this isn't primarily a crackfic. A lot of my cracky fics are primarily centered on the ongoing plot: _Tree of Thoth___, for example, echoes the game it's based on. However, since I have serious fics in need of finishing and this was written as an experiment and for a break, the original snippet version of _Uchibi Sasuke___ isn't one of them. So far. I may add to it and remedy this, but not while I'm still getting caught up and finishing other projects._

_I agree that a serious take on Naruto and Sasuke raising the Uchibis would be a cool fic. In fact, if someone writes and does it a good job I'd be happy to write them a giftfic in thanks._

_Since this fic was originally written for a message board, I used the opportunity to do a lot of experimenting, including with a degree of (in this case faux) interactivity. I'll be moving this chapter to the point in the fic where it was originally posted, but for now (most of) the things mentioned as spoilers in the omake have been revealed in the fanfiction dot net version, which I'm still editing and getting caught up with the original message board snippet version._

_So, now presenting - _

_Omake theater:_

* * *

"Alright." Konoha's Chief Justice (as head of the police force) pounded on the desk formally with the traditional Uchiha razor edged warfan (the blunt side, obviously) to open court. The Hokage couldn't be in charge, as it was Naruto's gender on trial. "The court is now in session. The people of _my_ universe, as the fic is named Uchibi Sasuke, shall now vote on whether or not we demand the author go back in time and retcon things so that Naruto was born female." If Kishimoto had done stuff to the plot for ridiculous reasons, the author of this fic could do it to give him his harem.

"This is ridiculous!" Naruto looked to where the Third and his students (Orochimaru had been granted amnesty until the vote concluded) had gathered, as well as Kakashi, for support.

Sasuke asked "Can any of you honestly tell me that you wouldn't prefer that Naruto be a woman?"

Orochimaru raised his hand. "I prefer male bodies."

"So that's one reason Naruto should be a woman." And join my harem. Way better than that pervert's.

"Come on!"

The Icha Icha writers and reader gave him a look, then each other. Well, he was young. "Naruto," the ex-Hokage explained, "You'd still be Naruto."

"And the other you is stacked."

"Ba-sensei!" Help!

"Naruto, I hate perverted men and live with a woman." So, for once, she found herself agreeing with them. She didn't want to betray Shizune's loyalty, but she preferred Naruto as a girl too. "What about you two?" Tsunade asked the Itachis.

Original Itachi scowled. "If Naruto is female, Sasuke will be too busy getting laid to be properly dedicated to getting strong, and too happy to hate me."

Retconned Itachi smirked. "If Naruto is female, Sasuke will be too busy getting laid to leave Konoha, where he's safe, and fall into the clutches of Orochimaru. And he'll be happy."

"So a total of seven reasons and votes for female Naruto. Hinata, what do you want?"

"Whatever Naruto wants." Of course.

"Right." Stupid question. "Which do you personally prefer?"

Hinata cast her eyes downward and blushed, twiddling with her fingers. "Umno…"

"The Uchibi clan, Aniki abstaining, casts its seventeen votes for Naruto to be female," Uchiha Shigure reported.

"Since then we'd have three mommies!" Uchiha Shinobu said happily.

"Three hot mammas," Shigure agreed.

"That's twenty-five."

"Twenty-five to one."

"Sakura-chan, I love you!"

"Look, Sasuke, I understand how awesome two hot people of the opposite gender making out is just as well as the next teenager who's honest with themselves. If you wanted to have sex with Naruto while he was a guy, I'd be all for it as long as I got to watch. I've even said that I wouldn't mind if you had sex with him as a girl too as long as things were fair. But you getting yuri and a harem and me not getting any yaoi _or_ a harem that I'm into is_ totally_ unfair."

"Hey, he has main character privileges," the author Jiraya pointed out. "Just be glad you're not being written as a violent, abusive women who doesn't have Tsunade's redeeming qualities, just a pale imitation of them." Smaller imitations, too.

"Yes, I'm not. Because the author thought that was ridiculous. The _female_ author? Just because she's trying to write something else for a male audience doesn't mean she wants to deprive herself of one of the two sources of fanservice that _she_ enjoys in this fic. Just be grateful she made Tsunade and Hinata bi instead of you, Sasuke."

"…So the author is the reason Tsunade never fell for my charms?"

Tsunade flicked Jiraya through a window. "No, that was you."

"If you want a universe where you've got me, Hinata, _and _a harem of female Narutos, write it yourself," Sakura summed up.

"Hmm. Jiraya-sensei?" Sasuke prepared to…

Naruto grabbed his hands. "No!"

"You never gave up on being Hokage, and you expect me to give up on having a harem of kuniochi with awesomely large…" Sasuke remembered Sakura, "powers?"

"No! Don't use that jutsu to bribe Jiraya to teach you to write the way you used it to make the toads force him to let you sign their summoning contract! Not in front of the readers! It's a spoiler!"

"Since when do we care about spoilers? They already know who the two of us are going to learn from because of this thing."

"It's a spoiler for the crossover and the awesome but not actually broken Sharingan abilities you're going to get!"

"Isn't she a spoiler already?" Sasuke pointed at…

"The readers can't see a thing unless it's described, just like you with that blindfold," Naruto reminded him as the spoiler licked Shinobu's face.


	20. The Cheating Exams

Naruto had forgotten everything he'd ever learned about geometry the instant he'd graduated. In fact, he didn't have much natural talent for math at all.

A lot of people found this surprising, since he didn't just get high scores on math tests but was a professional accountant.

Before he met Sasuke, Naruto had been forced to learn how to squeeze every penny because of Konoha's prejudices. It was the accountancy equivalent of training while wearing insane amounts of weight. _Gai's _level of insane, even.

Then, he had become Sasuke's accountant, seen how much more money could accomplish with the Uchiha name backing it, and realized something: money was power. The Uchiha had accumulated all that money because they'd had power, and now they could use it to get even more power.

Money was like chakra, and you could use it for really cool jutsu.

Thus, the focus that would one day allow him to master the rasengan unbelievably quickly and improve on it had been applied to ninja accountancy and financial piracy. Then he discovered literal piracy.

While there was nothing cooler than being Hokage, Naruto figured that being a Ninja Pirate Demon-Vessel Accountant wasn't too bad. Of course, after his resurrection, there would be some debate over whether or not Gaara counted as a ninja demon-vessel zombie puppeteer.

It was why he and the other Uchibis could have the nice toys even though they kept blowing them up.

Anyway, Sasuke had delegated money stuff to Naruto, who actually liked it, and Naruto had learned to delegate test stuff to Sakura, who actually liked it.

Which was why Naruto spent the first test of the chunin exam trying to get a closer look at the Kyuubi's boobs so he could figure out how to make those of his sexy no jutsu that big without making them look fake, Sasuke spent it studying the chakra signatures of their fellow examinees, and Sakura did her exam, used a wind jutsu to create a lens that focused light to scorch the answers into Naruto's paper for him to copy over, used a puppetry technique with her now almost invisible white hairs to move Sasuke's hand around to write the answers down, and reminded Hinata that she needed to stop looking at Naruto's back with hearts in her eyes and carry the three.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Yeah: how do you make your vest stay like that? Is it glue or is it attached to the netting somehow?" Naruto had discovered that the only thing more distracting than boobs was clothing that looked like it might slip to show boobs.

If you saw boobs, then you saw boobs: awesome!

However, if there was the _potential _for boobs, then it made people focus on them with every fiber of their being, trying to make that clothing slip down the rest of the way by sheer force of will. The fact that no one had ever been able to actually do this was the real proof there was no such thing as psychic powers in the human gene pool (because the lack certainly wasn't for lack of trying), but people still hoped.

Anko whipped a kunai at him: the fact that Naruto barely managed to dodge was testament to the power of almost-bare tits. Well, that and Naruto's determination not just to master every technique in his arsenal but improve on it as much as humanly possible, and beyond!

Even though Naruto had never seen an issue of National Geographic in his life, he was aware of the fact that the power of breasts needed to be conserved, like the power of ninjutsu. When there were ninjas and ninja techniques all over the place, then they kind of cancelled out. But if there was only one ninja, that ninja could rule the world!

In lands where women were almost entirely clothed, men got excited when they saw bare ankles and sexy, sexy legs, but in lands where all anyone had to do was go to the beach, the appeal of the forbidden was lost. In the same way, there were lands where all the women walked around topless and nobody thought anything of it: no, what they wanted was for the women to put clothes on, because that implied getting to take them off.

Some ignorant fools might think that it was impossible to create a vision more sexy than tons of naked women, but Naruto was determined to go beyond even that!

Anko licked at Naruto's cheek, but only to get him hot and bothered before she put him in his place. Asking her to reveal a Double-D class secret in front of ninja from other nations, even genin?

Since she wasn't really interested, it was easy for her to dodge the casual swipe of Sasuke's sword-cane. "Hands off my accountant," he said, sounding utterly bored and disinterested (in a way the author would compare to his canon self if the author was still taking cheap shots like that).

"Accountant?"

"If you tell me how you do that, I'll show you how to make Konoha reimburse you for your dango."

Anko paused, as did Orochimaru in the act of licking the tasty blood off her kunai. "Reeeaallly," they said in unison.

Orochimaru began to reevaluate his priorities. At first, he'd just been here to pick up a handsome young Uchiha and grind Konoha under his snakeskin heels, but while running a village had seemed like all fun and games with people losing eyes back when the blond brat had gotten chosen over him, running Sound had shown him that it was twenty percent dealing with idiots (many of whom were too necessary to running the place to kill or traumatize) and eighty percent money, paperwork, or both.

He didn't quite think, "Fuck the Uchiha, I'm taking that one home with me," but it was… something along those lines.

"Why don't you come by my place after the exams, and I'll give you a… hands-on demonstration," Anko told Naruto, looking at him in a new light. Casting thoughtful eyes over the lean-muscled Sasuke and Sakura, with her vastly improved figure and long white hair, she added, "Bring your friends, too. I'd be happy to give all of you a few… private lessons."

After all, it wasn't statutory rape if they were genin, and thus legally adults.


	21. Clan Precepts

"You aren't worried about what Suna will do if you try to keep their demon vessel?" Jiraya asked.

Sasuke snorted. Suna could kiss his ass.

And they would, too, if they knew what was good for them.

Suna's current political situation was untenable, any historian could have told you that. Whenever a hidden village was that weak, they were going to be helped along to death by their neighbors, who would then proceed to loot the corpse.

Of course, any historian would have said the same thing about the Uchiha clan's situation. The reputation for power and viciousness that made Konoha's resident bastards like Danzo want to keep them around was what would make every other clan and village (like, oh, the ones they'd looted repeatedly in the past) want to kill the survivors and bury them at crossroads with stakes through their hearts.

Suna was around solely because the current Kazekage was a genius.

An evil genius, of course, but he was a ninja. The evil was implied. The only genius shinobi that wasn't evil that Sasuke could think of was Naruto, and after Naruto had learned how to shop he'd made a list of every store in town that had cheated him. Years later, when they weren't expecting it, he'd used sexy no jutsu to make the owners spray blood over all their stock.

Naruto had this ability to simultaneously be a sweet angel of mercy (and accurately-filled out tax returns) and an evil, evil goddamn bastard that the Uchiha clan was proud to call its own.

Since Sasuke was a member of Konoha's council he had to act like one, and that involved keeping up with current events. He'd been impressed by what he heard about Suna's situation and how the Kazekage was working from a position of weakness.

He'd essentially turned Suna into a political and military land mine: touch it and die. They had the desert that surrounded them, a few legendary shinobi like Chiyo (who was probably still on the level of the sannin, or rather the two sannin that weren't that Tsunade woman Naruto was after), the treaty with Konoha… And, apparently, a demon vessel that was dangerous enough outside the land of sand but would probably go through any invading force like a Grand Fireball no Jutsu through very dry kindling. The more enemies spilled their blood upon the sand, the more powerful Gaara would become.

Even Gaara's dislike of the Kazekage, which at first glance seemed like a mistake, was something any true ninja should recognize as expert manipulation.

On the one hand, if Gaara had actually cared about Suna, he might have gone after threats to it. Like the daimyo. If he cared about the Kazekage and his orders, then other villages would have regarded the demon vessel as an offensive weapon, not just a defensive one.

On the other hand, if Gaara actually hated the Kazekage or Suna, he wouldn't be willing to go on missions that showed his strength. Not to mention that this was a demon vessel that normally destroyed anything that irritated him. No, the fact Suna was still standing showed that Gaara's view of the village was being expertly handled.

As was the demon vessel's PR. After his previous missions and being shown off in the Chunin exams, Gaara's reputation would have been cemented as a ruthless killer who crushed anyone who attacked him but didn't care enough to attack anyone unless it was a mission. A land mine. Like Suna.

The fact that Sasuke now controlled the demon half of their demon vessel meant that the Kazekage would have to come to him if he wanted to make sure the other villages kept believing that he didn't have any real control over Gaara. They could compare notes, work out an alliance, and both of them could just allow other people to get the impression that there was a possibly that the Uchiha might create a clan presence in Suna someday. Or even move the clan stronghold there. The impression would be advantageous, an extra bargaining chip, but not anything that would threaten the other villages and clans and tip them into attacking, since those with long memories (like the Hokage) would know that the Uchiha had always considered Suna a godforsaken hellhole that they wouldn't spend any longer in than necessary except over a lot of other people's dead bodies.

Suna was one of only two ninja villages – okay, three, counting this new Sound village that was sending genin to the exam now – that had never been burnt to the ground by the Uchiha clan. Konoha and Sound had that distinction because they'd been built after the Uchiha had stopped doing that, and Sand because they hadn't wanted to go there. That meant they were the only three villages where Uchiha could live in some semblance of safety.

It was a pity Sound's leader wasn't attending the exams: it would have been worth sounding him out.

* * *

Now, it wasn't against the rules for teams to help each other out in the forest of death, but it was _very _strongly discouraged. Otherwise, teams would join up among village lines and another Shinobi War would be fought at every Chunin exam. There were, however, ways around this.

Normally Sasuke let Naruto be the one to look up what they could get away with, but he'd hit the books himself in the week leading up to the next part of the exam. He was the fucking clan head: if he didn't pass, that would be an embarrassment and undermine his bargaining position.

Which was why when his team was called to go in, he went over to Hinata's team, picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder before going to join Naruto and Sakura at the entrance, casually ignoring the onlookers and Hinata's startled meep.

"This isn't a honeymoon, kid. Although…"

"No shinobi other than genin taking the exam are allowed to enter the forest. However, Genin may take any ninja tools in with them that they can carry." He pointed at Hinata with his free hand. "Hyuuga Hinata is a Hyuuga. Under Konoha law, all Hyuuga are recognized as the property of their clan head. She is also my fiancée, and by our marriage contract I am her clan head. As she is my property, and useful in completing missions, she qualifies as one of my ninja tools. So I'm carrying her in, and she can't be barred on the grounds that she is a person because she is a genin competing in the exam."

"Genin can only enter with their teams." Anko saw where he was going with this.

"So the rest of her team needs to be sent in with us."

Naruto waved for Kiba and Shino to hurry over.

Once they were a ways away from the gates, Naruto folded his arms. "I'm ok, but some of you guys are going to have trouble blending in." Sasuke had dressed formally (of course, that was ninja formal…) to increase his odds of getting away with his trick, and Sakura was trying to create a signature look that would intimidate and mislead her enemies and was wearing a flowing sliver… thing that Haku had designed. It was obvious that Haku had made it by the way Sakura clearly didn't realize how indecent it was.

Naruto, on the other hand, was wearing orange and black, which were fantastic colors for hunting (especially the most dangerous game) in jungles, as jaguars and man-eating tigers had been proving for millennia.

"Naruto, we're ninja." Sasuke threw Hinata at him. "Let's try and get this done by the day after tomorrow."

Naruto caught her handily and put the blushing Hinata by his side, where she was very happy to stay while she focused on remembering to breathe. "Exactly! Wouldn't this go a lot faster if we torched the place?" Orange and black were also excellent colors for sneaking around by infernolight.

"Naruto, I'm disappointed in you. Clan precept 37."

"Oh, right. Pillage, _then _burn."

"You can set fire to the forest _after _we get the scrolls, to cover our break for the tower, but before then the trees are an advantage." They blocked the enemy's line of sight and they were far more visible to Sasuke's chakra sight than dirt and ashes would be. "We need to find two scrolls: let me know when your clones find our first set of targets."

Hmm. "See if you can locate Sound genin. I want to see if their training is up to snuff."


	22. Goodbye Nurse

Long had he waited for this moment.

Orochimaru had instructed Kabuto to maintain his cover and only bow out _after _passing the second test of the chunin exam. The more times he failed, after all, the harder it was to convince new teams to take him on, and Orochimaru often used Kabuto to mentor promising young future slaves-he meant ninja. So often Kabuto's team passed the exam without him.

Only by putting up a strong showing until he failed could Kabuto continue to take the exams and get placed with the young and easily brainwashed genin.

However, for many years Kabuto had nursed a deep and implacable hatred in his heart. He had been created as a puppet for Orochimaru, but he'd been placed with a kind foster father and been much loved by all the nurses at Konoha's hospital. For years, he had been the one they fussed over, the young genius adored by all.

Until _he _came.

The one who stood before him now, after having already cut down Kabuto's teammates.

This wasn't _technically _against orders. Orochimaru had wanted to have this ninja pushed to his limits to see if he was worthy to serve as his new host body.

"Uchiha Sasuke…" Kabuto said, pushing up his glasses.

"Kabuto." Sasuke frowned. The nurses had asked Sasuke to go easy on him: if only he'd known that this was Kabuto's team before Hinata's had annihilated them! He really should pay more attention to losers, it was going to cost him one of these days.

It was a pity Kabuto was too professional a ninja to say anything along the lines of. "Uchiha Sasuke… you stole my hot nurse fangirls. _Prepare to die_."

Of course, he wasn't actually planning to kill him.

That was far too merciful.

He'd just wanted to get to bitch-slap the arrogant young punk a few times. In fact, the kind thing would have been to disarrange that pretty face with his scalpels, since that would have made his body less attractive to Lord Orochimaru.

Unfortunately for Sasuke, Kabuto had no interest in being kind.


	23. Reverse Harem no Jutsu

Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time_ is a good example of the 'Reverse Harem' genre. Prr, that's quality eye candy._

* * *

When the weird grass-nin definitely-not-lady appeared, Naruto's eyes widened like a kid in a ramen shop. "I call dibs!"

"But…!" No fucking fair! Sasuke had sensed him first!

"You got to fight Glasses!"

"That was because I had to!" He'd promised the ninja-nurses that he'd do his best to make sure nothing bad happened to Kabuto.

"He was still pretty strong." It took a lot of skill to pretend to be _exactly _at a certain skill level. "Wonder who he's working for?"

Sasuke sighed, shaking his head disapprovingly. "Probably Dango-bastard." Since he'd focused on trying to mark Sasuke, which would be embarrassing for a clan head. Being inserted into teams of Chunin hopefuls would be a good position for one of his. Sasuke sighed, shaking his head. What a disgrace to all of Konoha's medic-nin, to sink so low. His poor father was going to be so disappointed. Well, hopefully he'd be able to straighten his son out once he knew. Grounding, bedpan cleaning, volunteering him to be used as dissection practice… However, the urge to kill Danzo had already rose. "Eh, whatever. You can have him." He didn't want to waste his time dealing with some random grass-nin, strong or not, he wanted to kill _Danzo_. This entire Chunin exam was a fucking waste of time better spent training to kill people. Yes, the political ramifications, and the interesting tactical exercise, and…

If he didn't have the children to worry about and Naruto hadn't promised to become Hokage and drop-kick those annoying councilors into their place, he would _so _be ditching this dump. Like, yesterday. No, he thought, sighing, it just wasn't practical. He'd have to exterminate the Hyuuga since they'd be trying to recapture Hinata, and Sakura might have been able to seal the jutsu library into something so they could take it along, but it would be even more hassle than Danzo and the council idiots.

Marginally.

Probably.

…maybe he should start seriously considering moving to Sound.

"No, I'm going to be your opponent," Naruto explained, speaking slowly and carefully. "Sasuke beat the last guy, and I saw you before the others." Well, Hinata had probably seen him first, but Hinata was nice like that. She needed to train herself, but she'd let him have this guy without even a word. He added it to the mental list of 'reasons I need to do something really nice for Hinata.' As a matter of personal pride, it was annoying that in the tally of 'nice things Hinata has done for Naruto' vs. 'nice things Naruto has done for Hinata' Hinata totally had the higher score. On the other hand, it made him feel kind of squishy, and he'd told himself that when Hinata got a thousand points ahead, he'd change the world so the Hyuuga didn't need the Caged Bird seal anymore.

Of course, Hinata said that Naruto was so far ahead that she didn't think she could ever make it up to him, but that was just because Hinata thought he and everything he did was pure awesome, and that was distorting her count, if she had even been keeping proper track. Naruto had charts and graphs. He'd tried to show them to her, but she always ended up looking at him instead. He'd told her that was ok, he'd handle the Hyuuga finances too once she took over her clan since she wasn't good with accounting.

Anyway, "If you want to fight Sasuke, then you're going to have to beat me first, and then the rest of us until it's his turn again." Soooo…. "Let's do this!"

"Ganbatte, Naruto-kun!" Hinata cheered as Sasuke jumped up to stand next to Sakura.

"Shaved ice?" Proper hydration was important, especially in such a hot, humid jungle.

Inner Sakura snarled. "Goddammit, why couldn't Sasuke have fought a stronger opponent? Look at that, his clothes were barely even torn! Mmm, beads of sweat rolling down muscled skin…"

"Thank you." Sasuke nodded, accepting a dragon's blood one once Sakura unsealed it.

"Would either of you like one?" Sakura asked Hinata's teammates, smiling, mentally cataloguing them. The future clan heads would be useful allies. In future, playing hostess would be part of her duties.

Kiba didn't like sweats, but Shino's bugs were very grateful for the offer.

Normally, it would be a poor training session if Naruto led off with his most powerful technique, but he had some suspicions about this opponent that he wanted to confirm. "Harem no jutsu!"

His opponent only laughed. "Kukuku…" A powerful technique, yes, but only against lesser minds. No, with this boy on his side?

When fighting alone, Jiraya beat Orochimaru beat Tsunade beat Jiraya. When their summons fought, the order was reversed. This technique would allow him to defeat Jiraya _easily_.

His eyes glittered not with lust, but with avarice.

After performing an anti-blood-loss jutsu on herself and Hinata, Sakura shouted, "Try the one we worked on, Naruto!"

"Reverse-harem no jutsu!"

Inner Sakura wiped a tear from her eye. "Hallelujah, it's raining men."

While innocent vulnerability and nakedness barely concealed by clouds and hair maximized the effectiveness of harem no jutsu, reverse-harem no jutsu practically required clothing.

One of the advantages female ninja often had over male (although there was of course a range of abilities) was better skill at analyzing their opponents.

Even an untrained civilian woman could, looking at a stranger, list off around twenty facts about their personality, background, intelligence level, occupation, work ethic, amount of consideration for other people, just off the top of her head. They'd automatically take in and analyze this data with a single glance. For people without that skill, clothing was something they just tossed on.

For those in the know, picking out clothing in the morning became something between putting on a disguise and an exercise in psychological warfare. For women with principles, most men were so easy to manipulate that it was _disgustingly _easy. Just unfair. They'd sooner take candy from a baby than throw on a short skirt and call it done. It was a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

A man who knew how to play the game, however… Rated a second glance.

The amount of factors needed to create a female form that was attractive to men were limited, and 'lots of nearly-naked bouncy breasty blondes' filled just about every red-blooded male's criteria.

Women cared about _personality_. And clothes and accessories were how personality was conveyed. Sakura had been the one to train Naruto in that art, after finding out that he hadn't actually been deliberately trying to dress in a way that would piss off the rest of the class by demonstrating complete lack of respect for them and the learning environment, and this was the show-piece of those efforts.

A tall, thin dark-haired man with glasses, leaning against a tree, smirking down at the ninja apprasingly, and idly flipping a kunai around one figure. Slowly smiling as he realized that this might be a _very _fun fight, adjusting his glasses and baring his teeth, dark armor dappled with leaf-shadows.

Another with shoulder-length red hair in lovingly embroidered sages'robes stood impassively, arms folded in long sleeves. Except those weren't just dragons on the robes, that was a complicated seal diagram that, to the trained eye, screamed of vast, understated power just as much as the small circlet on his brow, there as a concession to formality. Eventually, an eyebrow arched, and he made the concession of moving one of his hands out of his sleeves, ready to form one-handed seals of this person wasn't _entirely _a worthless opponent.

Another insultingly beckoned his opponent towards him, long hair lashing behind him like a lion's tail, advertising the techniques of a wire master.

A gleeful blond kid in an expertly tailored academy uniform worn artlessly, with _lots _of knives in his hands, ready to play. While jubilation at the prospect of blood was off-putting for civilians, especially among innocent children, this was an anti-kuniochi technique.

Anko would barely have been able to resist ruffling his hair.

Of course, it wasn't only effective against kuniochi. All ninja were trained to analyze their opponents. Clones weren't a difficulty. A thousand times nothing was still nothing, and a thousand times a known quantity was still a known quantity.

Ninja were trained to constantly observe their environment, to automatically analyze their opponents. Dozens, and as Naruto got variety and the different shades of meaning down and designed new forms _hundreds_ of skilled opponents _with different skills_? Seemingly different personalities that needed to be analyzed to determine their most likely actions?

The more intelligent a ninja, the more trained they were to notice everything around them. Even ninja who _didn't _like what they were seeing could get stuck in a kind of brain freeze, trying to fend off an assault with automatic/basic jutsu, because they couldn't make any kind of plan until they knew what they were dealing with.

The more intelligent the ninja, the more strategic, the more observant, the more dangerous, the more this technique forced them to focus solely on the enemy in front of them and what was going on in their own head in order to avoid being fatally sidetracked, too distracted to think ahead more than a moment. Too busy trying to figure out what was going on to figure out what to do.

It was a choice between trying to muffle their situational awareness, _choose _to ignore much of what was going on around them, willingly putting blinders on and allowing their opponent to spring things on them that they would otherwise have easily detected or be put on the defensive and trapped there, unable to seize the advantage.

Orochimaru knew, intellectually, that these were all genin, but he'd trained his subconscious for years to notice things like, 'hey, what's a mist-nin doing here?' 'close-range fighter,' and 'Oh kami, Jiraya's giggling again,' and ring the requisite alarm bells. He might know that the one in the robes of a minor court official of Coral Country with the book and the look of mild surprise at finding himself here wasn't a member of the Yomiko clan, but he still found himself trying to calculate how willing they would be to rip apart that book in order to use their clan techniques, if their skill level was high enough to manipulate the dead leaves of the forest floor, and if they were one of the few clan members with the ability to move through solid matter to attack.

Yes, the true beauty of Reverse-harem no jutsu was the ability to overwhelm the minds of ninja with too much information.

And too much shiny.

Both Orochimaru and the two Sakuras found themselves looking around and going, "_What _nice _bodies… Oooh, I want that one, and that one and that one… Oooh, a rare bloodline, I shall capture it and use it to make babies._"

"Come to mamma," Inner Sakura purred, now wearing a labcoat with a scalpel in one hand and a set of restraints in the other.

The other advantage of reverse-harem no jutsu was that Naruto had realized that by getting himself 'in character,' he could act and think differently than he normally did. It was an extension of his brainstorming technique.

"_I want that fucking shadow-clone technique," _Inner Sakura moaned lustfully. "_With that technique, that chakra, and our jutsu library, we would be unstoppable."_

"_We can't risk releasing the kyuubi in order to gain control over that chakra. Even if it _would _help Naruto be accepted by the village." _It would be wrong, Sakura told herself.

"_Fuck that, we're ninja. Morals are for the weak. Oooh, look at that outfit. Most of the parts would come right off if you pulled hard enough, wouldn't they. Haku must have shown him that trick_." Sewing techniques to allow seemingly-encumbering clothes to be made battle-ready in seconds. "_Oh yeah, look at that_." He was pulling his sleeves off thoughtfully, slowly, eyes on the enemy. Stitch by stitch. "_Work it, baby. _Wow_, he's _good_." _

"_He spent years learning how to elicit reactions." _Even if it had been a clumsy experimentation that defaulted to anger and annoyance, since those were the easiest.

"_Very _impressive." Orochimaru grinned, excited enough to take the offensive himself.

Sasuke shook his head. Comparing cosplay to the harem technique? This really seemed like an insult to the harem technique, but he guessed he'd take Sakura's word for it when it came to what worked on women. It wasn't an instant knockout, but he guessed that the fact it worked at least somewhat on just about everyone sort of evened it out. It could knock out some people, especially once the fighting started.

The strength, speed, grace, power, the clothing damage, the sweat and determination…

All of them (except Hinata) turned, surprised, when Shino fell over. Sakura automatically got him with a wire before he went very far.

O…. _Kay_.

The rulers of the insect kingdom were the Queens of the various hives. Few people knew that the reason the Aburame allowed their eyes to be eaten was that the eyes were practically part of the brain. Linking those nerves to their insects instead allowed the developing infant brain first to adjust to link to them as a source of visual data, and build on that connection.

The Yamanaka had noted a long time ago that the mental avatars of all Aburame were female. The Aburame had gone to some effort to keep them from realizing that it wasn't just because the Aburame was the ruler of their insects and the rulers of insects were Queens.

While individual bees and other hive creatures did not possess a mind, the Swarm did. Individual insects did not possess memories, hives did.

Many would be disturbed if they knew that when they spoke to an Aburame, they were not speaking to a singular entity, but a gestalt. The human component might be the most intelligent, but it was all components combined that made use of that intelligence, and personality was a function of memory. If a ninja's body died but any of the queens survived, they were kept alive until hopefully they could be among those given to the next child born, to give him the benefit of that ninja's experience, even if only dimly remembered. Swapping queens between ninja allowed them to learn techniques more easily… and the dissemination of memories and traits led to the common perception that the Aburame were all the same. It was also why the Aburame clan, unlike most others, had no internal friction. It was hard to look down on someone when you had walked a mile in their shoes, and being able to share memories prevented misunderstandings.

The clan heir might not be the future Queen of Queens, but the humans would think that. Shino's insects were of the most ancient, most intelligent, best able to link to humanity lineages the Aburame had.

Shino's human body was male, and there were a few drones of various species in his body, but the _vast _majority of the entities that made up 'Shino' were female. With memories of being female, in both male and female bodies, stretching back thousands of years.

No one had realized it, but the Aburame considered themselves almost as superior to the humans around them as the Uchiha did. They simply viewed them with pity instead of contempt.

Poor short-lived mayflies. Lost souls, trapped inside their own heads. Eternally _alone_. They would never be able to truly know anyone. They would never be able to trust anyone. They would die and their children would share none of their memories and their great-grandchildren wouldn't even know their names. Of course they always made the same idiotic mistakes, they had no opportunity to learn or wise guidance. Imagine if each ant tried to figure out everything for itself, surrounded by lies. The traditions of Konoha, the ideology passed on to its members, was no substitute. In the human, world, it was rulers treating their people like tools instead of queens loving their children. Konoha's attempt to change that was futile, but still laudable.

As Naruto's classmate, Shino had immediately recognized Naruto's attention-grabbing for what it was. Flowers wore bright colors and tried to grab the attention of insects: it was obviously the same strategy. To be alone was a terrible thing.

Then, Naruto had found a way to become not a single lonely human drone, but the queen of a swarm. Shadow-clones were short-lived ones that contributed memories and were part of the whole. That made Naruto an equal, worthy of respect. A human, other than the Aburame clan, who had found a way to escape the miserable fate of that species. Strong. Intelligent. Determined to help others, including the weak. Determined to become the Queen of Konoha and try to turn it into a _less _wretched hive of scum and villainy. Judged by the standards used to judge males, Naruto was a valiant and worthy drone, who did his best to defend the queen of the hive that had taken him in.

For insects, breeding between males and females was solely about bloodlines. Intelligent beings, like humans, wanted it to be something more. Since the human body had a strong desire for such bonding sex between equals, the Aburame yielded to the natural urge, but there was something lacking in such sisterly relationships. Sleeping with a human didn't satisfy the desire for companionship when a simple, singular mind was far from their equal. It made for boring pillow talk, not to mention that it wasn't real love or understanding if they couldn't tell the human the truth, since they wouldn't understand.

Naruto was a male Hive Queen. A hive _King._ Intelligent, just, strong, unique and exotic.

Someone new, novel, _exciting_, not someone they had effectively known for centuries.

If not for the pheromones between Naruto and Hinata, there would have been _vicious _competition among the Aburame over who (what body, what component Queens) would be allowed to court him.

When they, and Konoha, were reminded of the Uchiha Clan's Ibara-Ryosuke Peace Accords (Also known as the Harem Law), several young Aburame beauties were delivered to Hinata's doorstep.

Gift-wrapped.

* * *

_Since it came up in a review again, my readers aren't the only ones who would really like to see some of the ideas in here, like Sasuke and Naruto raising Uchiha kids, in a non-crack story. If anyone wanted to use some of the ideas in here, my response would be yes, please do. Part of the reason I'm not doing a non-crackfic is that my knowledge of the later manga especially is nowhere near good enough to meet my standards for a serious story, although thanks to the readers on the forum I originally posted this, I'm fairly sure all the divergences from canon so far are deliberate, like making the other hidden villages older than they are in canon to fit with the history of the Uchiha clan in this version and how it relates to the demons from Okami._


	24. Burning Bright

There has been much confusion about the name of Naruto's father.

Some said Kazama Arashi.

Some said Namikaze Minato.

Both were wrong.

Only a select few knew that the true name of the Flying Thunder God was…

Gekigami.

* * *

Very few saw the final confrontation between the Fourth Hokage and the Kyuubi. None of them had the sight to see anything but a human man bravely confronting the nine-tailed demon fox. None of them had the ears to hear anything but the growls of the beast and the strange-sounding chant of a divine sealing technique.

Except the woman floating next to a certain tree, but no one could see her, either.

For those with the sight to recognize gods and demons for what they were, the titanic beast was revealed to be only the aura of power possessed by a demon in the form of a dark priestess, and its tails nine slightly less gorgeous (and smaller-breasted) kitsune wearing collars, whose leashes were held by a clawed hand.

The creature that cloaked itself in the form of a man (although a student of legend would have realized that such a handsome and powerful blond with such a charismatic aura had to belong to the Moon Tribe) stood, or rather, crouched, growling, revealed as a winged tiger.

And the words of the chant, that no one could quite make out, their ears unable to translate the speech of the gods were, "Back off, bitch, this is my territory."

"Rawr." The Kyuubi batted her eyes at him. "Come and get me, tiger."

This time his growl wasn't anger but irritation. He looked to the sky and roared a summons: "Hey, Nee-chan?!"

The goddess of death descended, willing to answer the call of another child of Amaterasu, Mother of All and Origin of all that was Good. "Hey, little bro. What's up?"

"Would you mind sticking her in that seal? And opening up a portal so I can find my hot redhead before she starts rotting like Granny Izanami?"

"Sure thing."

…Or maybe the onlookers were lucky that they could not see the truth of the gods.

A human facing a great demon made for a much more epic story.

Oh: there was also a little tiger cub there, but his true eyes weren't open yet and his human eyes were closed almost the whole time because he was cold, hungry, and pissed off.

* * *

"Now I absolutely have to have you," Orochimaru said, surveying all the different ninja forms Naruto could take, all the different skillsets he could apply. "I want to see more of you, Naruto-kun. But, since I can't have you dying today…!"

Orochimaru moved so fast the afterimage hadn't dispersed before Naruto felt a hand on his stomach – his real stomach.

The tips of five fingers jammed into him as the Sannin applied what Sakura recognized as a disruption seal, designed to interfere with all active sealwork on the victim's body. That would immediately disable all of the seals woven into Naruto's ninja gear, leaving him vulnerable!

"Naruto!" Hinata cried as something happened to his chakra, the familiar red and blue suddenly contaminated by something else, the disruption spreading throughout his chakra coils.

"Bastard! What did you do to my accountant?!" Sasuke demanded, leveling his cane at the confusing grass nin. Sasuke couldn't see him/her, but the chakra and the way they used it was making it very hard for Sasuke to tell whether they were a boy or a girl. He/she had returned to his original position in the moment after he struck, leaving Naruto wavering on a branch, about to fall over as Hinata raced over to catch him. After Naruto turned ten, he started getting upset when Sasuke started getting pissed off when someone hurt him the same way he got pissed off if someone went after the (other) children he looked after. Naruto was going to become the strongest ninja and look after everyone: he didn't need Sasuke to baby him!

Being protective of a friend wasn't the Uchiha style, and Sasuke didn't want to admit out loud that Naruto was his best friend since that would make the Hokage and others worry about the Mangekyo and Naruto's safety, which was a laugh since Sasuke did a much better job looking after him than they had. He hadn't looked after him for these years just to slaughter him now, even if that _would _be the Uchiha thing to do.

However, Naruto and Sasuke's pride were both okay with referring to Naruto as 'something that saves me a lot of hassle,' since that not only made Naruto feel squishy in a totally grown-up way, to know that he was appreciated, but it made it totally practical and not at all weak or Senju for Sasuke to be concerned about Naruto, even if he _was _a friend.

"I'm fine," Naruto said, but they were in battle so Naruto would say that even if he'd been disemboweled. "Totally fi-" Then he hiccupped, and there was a soft _pop_ sound, the kind that Orochimaru alone recognized as the sound air made rushing into the vacuum left behind by someone using a _real _teleportation jutsu.

Or when someone suddenly started taking up a lot less space.

Silence reigned until Sasuke said "Will someone please tell me what the hell I am looking at?"

"Naruto turned into a tiger cub. With wings," Sakura reported as Hinata crouched down next to him on the branch, holding out the back of her hand the way someone partnered with an Inazuka learned to do with new animals, to make an introduction without threatening them.

"Fffft," was the sound Naruto made as he rolled over, having fallen on his back, and started trying to smooth down messed-up feathers with his tongue because having some of the quills jam up into his wings when he landed on them had not been fun. Also, some part of his mind was now convinced that if he refused to acknowledge what had happened, it would _not have happened_. He was Naruto Uzumaki of the Clan Uchiha: he did _not _get sucker-punched and disabled like that. He made embarrassing surprises happen to _other _people.

Once he looked properly badass again, he crouched on the branch and roared at the Grass nin with all the killing intent a pissed-off man-eating kitten could muster.

Since these were ninja, the intended intimidation failed, utterly.

_By the Dark Gods, _Sasuke thought, _that is the cutest thing I have ever not-seen. I want to take it home with me… Oh, right, already did_.

Of course, from the way the false-grass nin had just squeed (unusual effect! Testing! _Science!_), he'd have to ensure no one _else _took Naruto home from the Chunin Exams. Hmm, he could count on Hinata to protect Naruto, so the next to send against the enemy was "Sakura!"


	25. The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth

In order to understand the Uchiha Clan Jutsu Library, it was first necessary to understand the Uchiha and their traditional opinion of studying jutsu.

Specifically, that anyone who did it was a total loser.

While most ninja were taught that jutsu were precious knowledge, and fought to master every one they could get their hands on that they were capable of learning (and, as they became more powerful and got access to more, fit with their style), the Uchiha had the Sharingan.

For them, mastering a jutsu was the easy part. The hard part, the part that proved you were a real Uchiha, was also the fun part: finding a ninja and toying with them viciously, forcing them to use every jutsu they had in a desperate and futile attempt to survive, then using their own jutsu against them so that they would realize just how screwed they were, how vastly inferior they were to the Uchiha, before they escaped to the sweet, merciful embrace of death and the fun was over.

Uchiha learned their jutsu by hunting the most dangerous game. Studying was for fucking pansies.

Aside from basic, kiddie, training wheels jutsu, implying that a Uchiha had learned a jutsu instead of copying it was fighting words. Even now, the mere implication that he needed to be shown Naruto's sexy no jutsu was enough to drive Itachi, despite his efforts to forswear Uchiha ways, up the wall, even though Kisame had no idea what an insult it was.

What 'your mom' jokes were to the Aburame, what comments about beastiality were to the Inuzuka, what fat jokes were to a certain other clan, implying that they had worked for their jutsu instead of fighting for them was to the Uchiha.

Those and other offenses were on the official list of offenses that branded someone as Too Dumb To Live, and would have been death penalty if those things didn't take care of themselves. The items on the list were informally referred to as 'Konoha suicide.' Along with pissing off Shikamaru's clan, for they were subtle and had plenty of space to hide the bodies.

The Uchiha library existed for two purposes: to make those other, lesser clans weep with envy, and because the legendary Ibara-no-hime, after the entire business with her seragilo and her husband and the ensuing Clan War and dry spell had ended, had realized that she'd single-handedly hunted a few small clans and styles passed from master to apprentice to near extinction, which was a serious problem because she needed to replace her concubators now that her husband wasn't killing them anymore and there was a serious shortage of quality ninja manflesh out there. Not to mention her repraisals against her husband's harem. Between the two of them, they had wiped several legendary seduction techniques out of existence. While a great deal of work had gone into rediscovering those techniques, barring divine inspiration the three-day-long orgasm was probably lost forever. Even Jiraya's personal best effort had only been a little over seven hours, and that was only possible due to Tsunade's superhuman stamina.

Yes: The Ibara-no-hime/Ryosuke Peace Accords were serious business. No one wanted that tragedy to repeat itself.

Thus, all Uchiha were required to write down at least a brief description and the seals of every jutsu they learned, and periodically someone would be forced to go through and pick some out to hand out, or they'd let someone who had either done something nice for the clan or really pissed them off dig around in there and take a few home to learn.

It was basically like agriculture. If there was a jutsu some Uchiha found in there and really wanted to learn, they'd plant a scroll in someone's house, and a few years later come back to reap the benefit of some idiot geek's hard work. By killing them.

While some scrolls were simply a utilitarian, minimal effort list of names, results, seals and so on, others had started using those scrolls as records of their hunts, testaments to their ability. The Sharingan's perfect recall made it fairly easy for Uchiha to learn to paint, and it was possible to draw a scene with almost perfect photorealism.

Although everyone knew everyone exaggerated. The human body only contained so much blood, for example. The scrolls became the Uchiha equivalent of fish stories, about the one that got away, the one whose blood had sprayed _this _far...

In other words, perfect babysitting material, in a world without televisions.

In the same way that Narutos couldn't go into the library for more than a minute before being waylaid by all the shiny techniques, countless generations of harried Uchiha parents had discovered that when they needed to keep the kids occupied, graphic violence was the way to go. The position of clan librarian was as prized among the more maternal Uchiha as the Vice beat was among the young men, because her duties were hunting down and torturing people who didn't return their updated scrolls on time and answering the questions of adorable, precocious children, like, 'When I grow up, will I be able to yank people's intestines out of their noses?' and 'Do they really squeal like that, Auntie?'

Yes: the position always had countless applicants, despite the short life expectancy. They dropped like flies, ded of cute. (Or, more realistically, poison, but whatever.) Besides keeping it updated, no one really bothered to establish an organization system, or if they had their successors had ignored it. Uchiha had perfect recall, after all. They could find whatever they cared to.

It was a long and glorious tradition, that ended when Sasuke tried to dig through the mess for anything useful for keeping the kids alive instead of making them shut up, and went, "Fuck the pride of the Uchiha, this is ridiculous," and hired Sakura so they could make use of this stuff.

Normally, young Uchiha were sheparded through their first hunts, helped by elders, but he wouldn't have time for that. They needed to have enough jutsu to deal with Danzo and countless others forced into their heads, and they needed to know them _yesterday. _Screw giving the prey a fighting chance so the battles would be more fun, this was _serious_.

Sakura quickly learned that the library did have one way in which it was organized.

The closer to the front something was, the more exaggerated, showy, power-intensive, and utterly useless (unless you were a chakra whore like Naruto) its contents were. The further and further back you went, the more accurate, realistic, useful, practical in real life, and subtle and generally worth learning they became.

When she realized that, she went straight for the scrolls shoved away in dusty corners.

While Sasuke had decided never to use the Sharingan itself, the fact it was cheap, broken, and generally evil made it a great tool for keeping the kids alive. They could start trying to care about ethics and sanity once they were no longer in danger of being hauled off by old perverts.

So, Sakura's task was to learn every jutsu she could, and then go through her library and demonstrate them for every Uchibi who got the Sharingan, and keep them updated as she learned more. Sasuke agreed with her learning the basic (coughboringcough) ones first, as children would have smaller chakra reserves and it would give them an incentive to practice and improve so that they could learn _real _jutsu the _real _way. Not to mention they were less likely to kill each other with weaker jutsu.

Some of the scrolls contained the Memory House concept, as well as a few anti Yamanaka booby traps. Unlike the Uchiha library, Sakura's mental jutsu library was _very _well organized.

Normally, ninja could only use jutsu they had practiced exhaustively, engraving them on their body like kata did taijutsu moves, because trying to think of which jutsu to use took time, and it was a bad idea to pause to remember which seal came next when there were kunai flying at you.

Sarutobi had become the Professor, the god of shinobi, by dint of countless hours raiding libraries and lost archives, and a week of practice for every hour of research. Other ninja could only bow in awe before his work ethic and the impressive results.

Except Uchiha, who made fun of the geek.

But even Uchiha had to think of which jutsu to use, so they still tended to stick to the personal favorites that jumped to mind quickest. The advantage of Sarutobi's practice was that it gave him time to think of when it was best to use every single jutsu. He attained not just automatic jutsu use, but automatic _strategic _jutsu use.

Faced with the limitations his teacher had been unable to overcome, Orochimaru had been forced to conclude that Sharingan or no Sharingan, if he wanted to master every single jutsu, it was going to take _forever_.

So he'd decided that he'd better get started on immortality.

Normally, Shiroi no Sakura's legend would have died there, in that forest. There would simply not have been enough hours in the day for her to catch up, not while juggling five other projects and courses of study.

The next goddess of shinobi would have been crushed beneath Orochimaru's heel before her efforts had any chance to bear fruit.

Except she'd been hanging around far too many Uchiha for far too long, not to mention Naruto. Unlike... someone the author will not poke fun at becuase it would also be cheap and overdone, she was a ninja. Her goal in life was no longer just to have Sasuke or be worthy of Sasuke. No, with Sasuke came the Uchiha clan, and with that came the position of clan matriarch, in a time when the clan was experiencing an unprecedented crisis. And any proper ninja knew that crisis meant danger and _opportunity_.

She wasn't going to settle for being adequate, she was going to go down in the history books. Sure, she was going to be compared to legends, legends with the Sharingan. Her competition was cheating? There was only one thing for a ninja to do: _find a better way to cheat_.

* * *

_Since it came up in a review: _

_The way Naruto takes a certain tech level for granted is one of my major turn-offs about the series. I look at their society and the tech level and distribution we see, and frankly, no way in Hell._

_Romans with nuclear power: could have happened. Very easily could have happened. They had the steam engine and understood its principles. They just didn't do anything significant with it because their big social problem, the one that eventually led to them having several emperors and coups in single years, was a labor surplus. The last thing they needed was labor-saving devices and manufacturing techniques._

_Nuclear reactors are simple enough mechanisms that they can be found in nature. A civilization with enough knowledge of fluid dynamics to make use of steam power and the Archimedes screw wouldn't have had much trouble figuring out how they worked with a natural example, and since heating water was a major occupation of Roman civil engineers (public baths)? Given their use of lead piping, there could have been reactors throughout Europe and the Mediterranian, in the middle of cities, long before anyone realized there was a negative health impact._

_VHS, 8-bit digital and analog computing are entirely different from the above. You've heard the phrase 'standing on the shoulders of giants?' It can't happen in a world where everyone's cutting each other off at the knees, or trying to avoid being cut off at the knees and therefore not supporting or sharing techniques with anyone else. Industrial espionage is the kind of thing that makes or breaks countries at this tech level: the genesis of American textile mills is definitely worth looking into._

_Infrastructure, social stability, the reason Damascus Steel is lost technology (we still don't know how they did it, and all evidence suggests that our modern attempt to reproduce their results is massively inefficient by comparison)... Hell, Orochimaru is strong evidence they haven't realized several key and counterintuitive aspects of experimental design, the kind that will render data worse than meaningless if not corrected for._

_You've got basic applications of physical principles, the kind of thing that can be invented by a single genius, and then once the 20th century hit in our world, we reached a point at which advances couldn't be made that way anymore. Thomas Edison 'invented' so many things because he basically made a factory with a bunch of other scientists and stole the work of a bunch of other people, too._

_The tech we see in the ninja world is past the point of abstraction and requires enough public trust in infrastructure investment (in a world where stuff gets blown up: think Tazuna's trouble with the bridge times ten thousand similar installations) that it's just not feasable given their society and its focus on information control._

_The ninja world is not Japan: they don't have the social cohesiveness or unity to transform from a Third World society into a country with a First World tech level. What Japan did was miraculous: people, please don't take it for granted. They had a snowball's chance in hell of pulling that off, and all of the factors we can point to as things that helped them succeed are not present in the ninja world. Especially since the ninja world would actually have had to invent all this stuff instead of ripping it off from countries with superior social stability and freedom of information. _

_In short: no, just no. Even if someone did invent radio in that world, it would get crab bucket and S-class secret'd into oblivion. We only have the internet because universities were able to win an argument with the US Military and take over what was originally invented as top-secret military network tech during the Cold War. Do you really think the Narutoverse ninja would let some professors win that turf war? _

_LOL, no. Photography, sure. Photography can be accomplished with any of a handful of relatively straightforward chemistry tricks. Anything past that? Not happening. _

_Not until Naruto conquers the world and brings about an era of peace and non-dickishness, anyway..._


	26. One Night In Konoha

_Because oh yes, there is a plot with the Okami crossover stuff. There was a single line about Jiraya talking to Sasuke re. Gaara's custody - this is how he got involved. Needs more tweaking, but I'm too burnt out to care. Persona 2 Eternal Punishment is awesome, but freaking demon rumor system... At least all that happened is I missed out on some goodies, it's not anywhere near as bad as the social links._

* * *

Konoha held a lot of memories for Jiraya. He'd lost a lot of people here, and the memories of the good times were actually the most painful, since he'd never get to experience them again. He didn't _have _to come back to Konoha to report, Sarutobi would understand, but despite everything, there was something that always made Jiraya return to Konoha.

A strip club.

_The_ strip club.

The other hidden villages had tried their hardest, but never been able to come close to Underneath the Underneath. Screw teamwork: this was the real reason Konoha had the lowest defection rate of all the hidden villages. This was the real reason Tsunade hadn't cut ties and turned in her hitai-ate.

They took away your membership card when you did that.

These were not just strippers. These were _ninja_ strippers. Was she actually taking anything off, or was it just an illusion? Or the thrill of realizing that she'd actually been entirely naked the whole time. There was the Whirlpool clan with that octopus summon contract and the rest of the Classical Art show. And so, so many more.

Jiraya had come to town before the chunin exams started in order to catch the last showings of Orochimaru's student's snake charming act before she joined the exam proctors and was replaced by those Yamanaka twins. The club waved the normal rules about audience participation for those two, and Shadow Mistress Nara, since it didn't _really _count if it wasn't the audience member themselves doing the touching, but the kuniochi who had taken control of their body.

Sadly, Jiraya was too powerful a ninja to be controlled like that.

The backstage pass almost made up for it. They'd been putting on productions of his Icha Icha novels for years, with their genjutsu mistresses creating the images of the characters _exactly _the way he'd imagined them. Jiraya hadn't been able to agree to any movie deals after directing those: they just couldn't come close.

Despite the temptation, no one with any sense used kai at Underneath the Underneath. You missed half the show that way.

Jiraya was led to his reserved booth and made comfortable with some nice sake and a couple of trainees to lean against his sides and keep him warm. Their flattery was pretty clumsy, but there was something endearing about that. They were trying so hard to be appealing, with carefully put-on makeup and clothing cut to hang on their figures in a way that looked ill-fitting, as though if a guy stared long enough, it'd slip down, not realizing that all they had to do to be seductive was bare their innermost selves.

Of course, that was the last thing any ninja would ever do, so it wasn't that easy to learn kuniochi skills. Fortunately, this was a place they could practice without having to worry about anything they weren't comfortable with, or getting killed if their act slipped before their dress did, while the mark was still paying attention to what they were saying.

In order to keep secrets, the less said the better.

Jiraya was making fast, motion-study sketches of all the women in the room, to keep his hand in and to see the surprise and flattery in their eyes if he gave them to them (he sketched these two first, of course), when _she _walked in.

No one got her name or ID, and Jiraya wished he was surprised by this. "Who is _she_?" he asked one of his two girls, only letting admiration show in his voice.

They didn't have any idea _and didn't see anything odd about that_. They were just looking at the white-haired woman in the red silk slip that matched her facial markings with admiration that bordered on envy.

She was given a seat right at the edge of the stage and immediately about five people who should have realized something was up (such a powerful unknown?) started ordering drinks for her.

She put her feet up on another chair, slitted skirt falling away from well-toned legs, and sucked a cherry off its stem in a wonderfully obscene way that made Jiraya want to clap. She _was _good.

The only question was _how _good.

The Toad Sage, along with the rest of the room, was barely paying any attention to the act on stage until the drumbeats started and it clicked. This wasn't just any show that was going on tonight. This was their signature production of Ame no Uzume's dance, the dance that had lured the sun goddess Amaterasu herself out of her cave to watch, restoring light to the world.

Despite the use of demon containers, despite the power of boss summons, despite so many Konoha ninja seeing the Ninetails itself, ninja didn't really think about the fact that there were powers other than their own in this world. Jiraya's training as a sage had given him access to some of that power, and with it knowledge.

Even Jiraya, who should have known better, hadn't really figured the gods into things. Oh, he'd studied their power, as a sage. The prophecy about him should have given him a hint that things were on the move. But years had rolled by, the prophecy had seemed fulfilled without really amounting to anything, and he'd settled into a comfortable rut of spreading the less-well-known teachings of the Tengu Sage, bringing a little pleasure and joy to this corrupt world.

"_Of all the strip joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine_," he thought to himself, watching the entire room revolve around this woman, none of the ninja realizing that there was anything unnatural about this.

Because there wasn't. The entire world _did _revolve around the sun, and its goddess.

Most of the room couldn't even look away: she was the only one watching the act, licking her lips.

Jiraya had studied about her, but he hadn't realized she was _this _hot.


	27. Only You Can Save Neji

_Yes, this is jumping ahead. _

_It doesn't really spoil anything except that certain people don't get killed off (permanently, anyways) and come on, like you thought the Author was really going to do that._

_I'm mostly out of material from the original forum posts, which is why updating has slowed. I would promise to update on my regular schedule of Fridays if I was updating anything on that schedule right now. Up next is most likely a kiriban chapter. _

* * *

When the matchups were announced, Hinata gasped. Neji?

Sasuke and Naruto winced (although Sasuke's wince was hidden by the blindfold) and looked at each other. Or turned his head in Naruto's direction and tried to detect the effect Naruto's… enthusiastic emotions had on his chakra, in Sasuke's case.

The conversation could be summed up thus:

'Your fiancée.' And Naruto couldn't be too nice to her, with all these onlookers, even if he was known for spontaneous hugs.

'Your girlfriend.' The fact that Sasuke was currently obligated by the whole marriage contract thing to provide emotional support didn't mean he was any good with the warm fuzzies.

'You're the bastard.' There was no nice way to say what had to be said.

'You're the nice one… point.'

So Sasuke was the one to put his hand on Hinata's shoulder and pull her side. "Sakura? Come with us."

Once they were a couple rooms away, he told Sakura to put up a sound-muffling barrier. The only thing as useful as an accountant was a walking library of handy jutsu.

"I can't beat Neji." Hinata told him. "My father said… If he can't make chunin, or at least make a good showing, then his eyes are more valuable than his skills." That meant taking him off active duty. Restricting him to the compound and _maybe _the rest of Konoha, either guarded or as a guard, for the rest of his life, so he could be used for breeding purposes.

"Hinata..." Sasuke patted her on the shoulder. "Don't think of it as condemning your cousin to a life of luxury, with nothing better to do than have lots of sex. Think of it as saving his life."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Because I _know _that the elders made the exact same threat to you. They're not going to want to risk their chance of recapturing my family, after all. If you don't make a good showing, you'll be restricted to the Hyuuga compound and my clan's, pulled off of active duty. And that not only means less time with Naruto, it means less chance to get stronger. No Uchiha clan head has ever had a wife who wasn't internationally feared. He is _threatening the prestige of my clan_. I can't ignore that. Not to mention that you, being you, obviously won't go down easily. Meaning Neji will have to hurt you. An _attack _on the future Uchiha matriarch in order to damage the prestige of my clan and make it easier to absorb us. I _have _to respond to it."

Maybe he should use smaller words. Hinata was one of those weird nice people who didn't get clan politics. "If Neji defeats you, I will have to put a bounty on his head. Within twenty-four hours, every village in the world will know it and have him in their Bingo Books: you know Naruto's communication network. The Hyuuga clan doesn't bow to threats, meaning they'll keep him on active duty. Maybe he'll defeat the first few idiots, and that will make the elders happy, but eventually? _Neji will die_. Especially because I'll be letting Naruto set the amount of the bounty, and you_ know _how he gets when his precious people are hurt. For every bone of yours Neji breaks, Naruto will up the bounty money enough that the ninja who kills him will be able to buy another private island. So, again. Don't think of it as hurting your cousin. Think of it as saving his life." He patted her on the back. "I'm sure you'll be able to defeat him in a way that isn't too embarrassing, but remember. If you break a bone, Naruto breaks the bank."

"Naruto-kun wouldn't…" Oh, but he would. Naruto cared so much about his precious people, and she was one of his precious people, even though it was hard to believe sometimes, that someone as wonderful as Naruto would… No, no, Naruto wouldn't want her to think that way. And Naruto wouldn't want to hurt her cousin Neji, so she had to find some way to make sure that Naruto wouldn't have to. And hopefully to make sure that Neji wouldn't end up having to sleep with women for the rest of his life who didn't care about him, but resented the clan's orders or were civilians that just wanted the money they would get from the Clan Elders for bearing a Hyuuga.

Poor Uncle Hizashi was always so exhausted in the mornings, after that. Why, sometimes he couldn't even move and they'd have to summon a medic-nin! It had just been too cruel of the elders that time, to order him into one of the guesthouses with twenty-three women and not allow him to leave, not even to see his son, until they were all pregnant.

Even her father, cold as he normally was, had seemed unusually downcast and even subtly angry, and he'd been so happy when his brother was finally released and finished recovering from chakra exhaustion that he'd actually been almost _cheerful _for weeks! He'd even gone a full twenty-four hours before first criticizing her for not acting assertive enough and then, when she said that she couldn't cook for him because she needed to go to the Uchiha household even though he'd ordered her too, that she was being too disobedient and unfeminine! He'd, he'd actually been feeling _well! _

(Hinata had no idea that 'Hiashi' had been so irritated before 'Hizashi's' return because his older brother had asked Hizashi to switch and cover for him while Hiashi got to take a break. In Hiashi's defense, he hadn't known ahead of time that the Uchiha clan head would be leaving town and Hizashi would be stuck at council meetings with Uchibis. Normally Hizashi quite liked the demon brats, but the fact that he was having to deal with them for as much as seventy-two hours straight while Hiashi got to be buried in women eager for money and/or to get it over with, at least before the sixty-four-strike-divination-of-erogenous-zones secret seduction techinique convinced them otherwise just added insult to injury.)

No, Hinata had to find some way to save Neji's life and save his career as a ninja so he wouldn't be tied down while people had their way with him. Especially when even her own father was helping Neji train: was he counting on her to find a third option?

Well, no, this was her father, but Uncle Hizashi might be. And even if they had never believed in her, she still had to do this, for Naruto and Naruto's nindo!

"Do you need ideas? Naruto would be happy to help you brainstorm." Naruto was good at brainstorming. Sasuke had tried, but all his ideas basically came down to, 'screw the ice prince, just kick his ass. The medic-nin would be happy to put him back together and console him.' Neji was widely acknowledged among the female medic-nin as Konoha's third hottest genin, after Sasuke and Kabuto. Then there was his _very _sizeable breed price: the Hyuuga were still trying to build up their numbers after the Kyuubi and on top of the pampering she would receive while pregnant, any nurse who managed to mother or 'physical exam' her way into his bed would be able to afford Konoha's top spa treatments daily for at least three years.

"There is a way." To defeat him without looking too much better than him. It would be embarrassing for her to defeat him, after letting herself be seen as a kuniochi more interested in children and cooking than the ninja arts, but if they were both equally embarrassed? If she defeated him with an embarrassing technique, then the Hyuuga would have to keep them both out in the field, in hopes that at least one of them would bring some prestige to the clan. "I'll use the technique Naruto and I have worked on together."

Sasuke was still distracted enough by mental analysis of his own upcoming match that he almost said that would be incredibly cruel before he remembered right, what did he care? "Good." He patted her on the shoulder again. "That's the kind of," pure evil, "thing it takes to marry into the Uchiha clan." The fact Naruto was adopted, Uchiha traits aside, just made getting him married off properly more important. Sasuke might intend to marry a first-generation ninja, but that didn't mean the clan head wasn't well aware of the importance of properly managing his clan's breeding program.

"Hey, guys, do you need me to stall?" Naruto had tried to get their attention from outside Sakura's bubble of silence, but when they ignored him (and Naruto made damn sure people couldn't ignore him. Well, not unless he wanted to be ignored) he'd realized what was going on and ran into it, trailed by Temari.

"Stall?"

"He didn't crush her, did he?" Sakura knew that Ino was a ninja, and that came with risks. She couldn't hold a grudge against Gaara for killing her friend, he'd been possessed and crazy. She knew what _she _was like when sleep-deprived, she couldn't imagine how psycho she'd have been after years of it.

"Uh… Crushed on her? Maybe?" Naruto scratched behind his ears. "They put up a barrier after the clothes started to come off."

Sasuke blinked. "What." Gaara? Seriously, Gaara? Sasuke couldn't deny that he needed it, but Ino using seduction techniques on Gaara was totally and utterly unfair. So cheap.

He'd thought Ino was just another fangirl. He might have to concede that she was worthy of the regard Sakura held her in if she kept this up.

"I think Ino tried to mindwalk, since it was the only thing she had that would do any good, and Shikaku was drunk, and Ino ended up totally giggly and saying how hot it was in there, and Gaara doesn't know any seduction techniques but Rao says Shikaku does…" Rao had said more about dry spells and so on, but Naruto had mostly been trying to calculate the magnitude the arc her breasts made when they bounced once he was reassured that he wasn't going to have to activate any of his plans for cheating under the eyes of the exam proctors since nobody was going to get killed. "Anyway, apparently the rules say that the match ends when somebody stays down or goes down, so Hinata, you're up! Break his fingers!" That was the traditional ninja version of 'break a leg!'

Hinata blushed slightly. "Thank you, Naruto. I'll do my best."


	28. Internal Affairs

_More snippets from the future: unlike the Saving Neji chapter, these were actually put up on the forum before I moved on to other projects. I'm still missing various odds and ends, so I'm trying to get them up here for archiving purposes before I forget._

_Also: a reader named PatSquared sent me a scene from their head during a review response conversation. Since part of the original experiment that produced this was the interactivity, I said that if he expanded it, I might post it as an omake or somesuch. It ended up diverging from the vision in my head, but I still liked it, so if you want to read someone else's take on Uchibi Sasuke-style crack, I put a link up in my profile. If anyone else wants to write anything, from more omakes to a serious fic with this premise, let me know? I normally write giftfics as thanks for fanfic, by the way._

_Speaking of giftfic, I also owe a kiriban gift chapter to mikan17lover, who wrote the 200th review of this fic. Something I do because I really appreciate the feedback in reviews is randomly award kiribans to people who write landmark reviews: I ask for a prompt and they can request a special chapter of a fic or a random oneshot. She requested more with the Narucave Pirate fleet: I haven't forgotten about it, I'm just having trouble putting my feet down and getting the stuff I'm supposed to be working on written. I'm not promising a 300th review giftfic, partially because I do need to get back to the plot, but if the 300th review contains actual useful feedback the odds are pretty good, hint hint._

* * *

"She's _still_ fighting the clan elders? It's been hours!" Sakura, who had gone back to the compound temporarily to check on her experiments, sat down next to Sasuke, holding out a dragon's blood shaved ice she'd snagged from one of Naruto's clone venders. "I mean, this is Hinata we're talking about. Little miss Can't bear to hurt a fly unless it's even thinking about touching Naruto-kun. The girl who spent years letting everyone think she was weak in order to protect her little sister from getting the Caged Bird seal? She doesn't like hurting people!"

And yet she had spent almost five hours by Sasuke's time sense one, or two, hit-pwning all of the Clan Elders. The girl who couldn't bear the thought of hurting someone else's feelings was utterly embarrassing them, and then using healing jutsu on them.

So that she could do it again.

"I mean, I know that she needs to make a point, but this just isn't like her." Sakura the White Serpent started going through all of the many, many genjutsu counters she knew after summoning a snake to put her own shaved ice on.

"It's her, and she's in her right mind," Sasuke told her, taking another bite of the ice he'd taken without even glancing at it. Sakura knew what to get him.

"Then what does she think she's doing? I mean, I don't mind being here to lend moral support," she'd left a clone when she'd gone to check on her dear little experiments, "But this is just getting ridiculous. And the chanting would be giving me a headache if I didn't know a jutsu for that."

"She's got a good reason." Sasuke looked over at the source of the chanting. Or rather, around at them.

The field of combat and the small group of spectators were entirely surrounded by Narutos. Orange Bombshells in extremely skimpy cheerleader uniforms, to be more specific. Jumping and doing cartwheels and waving orange and purple pom-poms and cheering, "Go Hinata, go Hinata!"

"I think she'll probably stop in a couple minutes." Pity. The young woman was really just too sentimental and nice, which was bad in a field ninja, but the perfect qualities in a babysitter.

Now, if Sasuke were Hinata, he would never have allowed the suffering of others to interfere with his mission objectives. He would have continued beating those old fools into the dirt all day, or even all week, and when he stopped it wouldn't be out of sympathy for them but in order to throw his wife over his shoulder and suggest they go do something… experimental.

No, Hinata had a very good reason for continuing this even after she'd broken the back of any possible Hyuuga resistance to her rule. It was the same reason Sasuke hadn't even left to go pick the two Uchibis who hadn't already graduated up from school.

It was because shortly after Hinata won, _the bouncing would stop_.

* * *

"It's alive, alive!" Sakura had always wanted to say that, but the Fourth's laws on human experimentation were pretty strict, and Naruto wasn't going to repeal them even for her.

Yes! The gestation device's problem with lack of proper sensory stimulation had indeed been fixed by her genius genjutsu seals! She would never again have to spend several months feeling all bloated, ugly, and having her experiments disrupted by constant cravings for chocolate, plum wine, and someone to kill with one of her thousand jutsus!

"Guess you're going to stop writing Icha Icha now, huh Jiraya?" Tsunade elbowed him in the side, grinning. She finally had a daughter despite the damage Genesis Rebirth had done to her ability to bear a child! She would finally be able to stop her husband writing those books! She had won!

He just blinked at her. "What? Why?"

Tsunade smirked. "You know, daughters are god's revenge on men for being men. You'll have to worry about her running into someone just like you." Now he'd learn why everyone hated perverts like him. "What are you going to do when she's old enough they come after her?"

"…Well, I hope little Ichako is lucky enough to run into into someone just like me. As for anyone who wants to date her, I'll just give them a quiz on the contents of my books first, and I'll make sure that they know that if she doesn't have at least three orgasms, I'll kill them."

"…What? And we are not naming her Ichako!"

"Well, I'm not letting some _virgin_ who doesn't know what he's doing lay a hand on my daughter. And _I _already won the argument three years ago, anyway."

When he'd managed to make her gasp out how much she enjoyed the benefits of his 'research,' and was forfeiting all future rights to cast aspersions on it or his great works of instruction.

It was the duty of a sage to bring holy wisdom to the masses. Some tried it by writing long, boring books about how people should stop fighting and love one another in order to bring about heaven on earth. Jiraya's books did it by _showing_, not telling, how wonderful it was when people stopped killing their fellow inhabitants of this world, like sexy kuniochi, and instead came together with them in order to perform sacred rituals and enter nirvana.

He still regretted giving up his life as a traveling monk, spending his time spreading love to all the world, but in all these years he'd never found tits quite like Tsunade's.


	29. Something Completely Different

_Aneki: big sister/(gang) boss, in the way Aniki is big brother._

_This is a bit of the 'what if Naruto was born female' universe (in which Sasuke actually gets fewer boobies) that The Author threatened Sasuke with awhile back, posted to reassure people that The Author has not forgotten about the fic. - _And that is from the ANs in the version of this originally posted in the forum. For the Fanfiction dot net readers, the Author still hasn't forgotten about this fic, The Author has just been on one hell of a gaming binge. Including Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure and all the Persona games except P3 in reverse order. The Author would apologize, but she regrets nothing.

_"Stick and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me," is bullshit. Especially for demon vessels, who can heal the first kind of damage much easier than the other._

_The Wouldn't Hit A Girl Trope means that female!Naruto would probably get beaten up less than male!Naruto, but that means that people would do it with words instead. And it's a lot easier to torture someone with words without feeling like a bastard/a 'really' bad person than knives, meaning more people would do it._

_Shunning is a scarily effective form of torturing people, especially the young, into compliance, and for good reason. Not that any version of Naruto would cave, of course, but a female!Naruto would end up quite a bit more damaged than a male!Naruto simply because the gender would cause people to take out their anger at the fox on Naruto in the more effective manner…_

_And Uchibi!Naruto is one of Sasuke's, and nobody fucks with the people under Sasuke's protection._

_So far, the biggest differences between this and regular Uchibiverse are that sexy no jutsu doesn't exist and a lot more Uchibis go into Interrogation, since they end up with a lot of practice torturing people…_

* * *

"Hai, Naruto-chan," Hinata said, even though she really had no idea whatsoever what Naruto had just said. She had learned, over the years of their friendship, that if Hinata didn't respond to Naruto's happy chatter at the appropriate junctures then Naruto would frown and ask her what was wrong.

And while Naruto-chan's peeved little frown was adorable, and her willingness to go do something about whatever had made Hinata unhappy right then and there made her so very happy, that just wouldn't do.

Because there was nothing more wonderful in the world than Naruto-chan's smile. Hinata wanted to pay attention to what Naruto-chan was saying, really she did, but when Naruto-chan was smiling like that, everything else just went away and she remembered the first time they had met, when Naruto-chan had been all alone on the playground, just like Hinata, and had been the one to come up to her, and somehow Hinata had ended up telling her everything, things she'd told no one else ever, and Naruto-chan had held her hand and patted her on the head and said, "It'll definitely be all right, believe it!" and then when Hinata had smiled back had pulled her over to what was Naruto-chan's very own swing. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.

When Naruto-chan smiled, so happy and enthusiastic, Hinata could really believe that everything would work out, that Naruto-chan would make sure it did. Naruto-chan's happy place was her swing, Hinata-chan's was wherever Naruto-chan was smiling.

So, to make sure Naruto-chan kept smilling, Hinata had quickly learned to say, "Yes, dear," to anything Naruto-chan said. Because she really would do anything to make Naruto-chan happy.

Share her bento?

"Hai, Naruto-chan," because she'd made it hoping Naruto would ask.

Practice Taijutsu?

"Hai, Naruto-chan," even though she worried that a weak opponent like her would be a waste of Naruto-chan's time, Naruto-chan just smiled and said that Hinata was great, and of course she would train and get stronger to help Naruto-chan. If Naruto-chan believed in her, she could do anything.

Defeat her father?

Yes, even that. Naruto-chan had said, "You shouldn't take that anymore! I know you don't want your little sister to be unhappy when she grows up, but you're unhappy now! If you don't beat him up and make him be nicer to you, I will!" And she'd folded her arms and stamped her foot on the ground, and Hinata had not only known that she could but that she would, because her father didn't like Naruto-chan and even though Naruto-chan would surely win and be okay, he'd try to hurt her and Hinata-chan wouldn't let Naruto-chan be hurt.

And even though she felt bad for Hanabi it would all work out okay, because when she grew up she was going to get rid of the caged bird seals anyway, and with Naruto-chan and Uchiha-san's help she knew she'd definitely be able to.

Naruto-chan had said so, and with Naruto-chan cheering her on there was no way she would fail.

When that day did come that she battled the elders, the small army of Narutos wielding orange pom-poms and jumping up and down chanting, "Go Hinata, go Hinata," were actually a hindrance, since the sight of them first froze her in her tracks and then made the battle drag on and on, since Hinata knew that when it was over the Narutos would stop bouncing happily like that and she never wanted them to stop.

* * *

"You made Aneki cry." Oh, she'd tried to hide it, of course. When Aneki was sad and needed to get away from people for a bit, she went to her swing until the rush cheered her up. When Aneki cried, she hid away so no one would know and worry. They hadn't been able to find out where she went or follow her in ages, she was too much better at stealth than them, better than anybody, but they knew.

They didn't like it when Aneki cried. It happened less and less now, though, and they didn't like that either. Only part of it was because they were doing a good job protecting Aneki. Most of it was that Aneki was just getting used to being hurt, and that pissed them off. Aneki was really nice and cheered everybody up, and the stupidhead old bastards kept saying mean things when they were the horrible ones.

No one got away with hurting The Clan, or even friends of the clan like Hinata-nee-san. Of course, Hinata-nee-san knew nothing about this. She was too nice. She'd stop telling them about the things she saw people say in Naruto's hearing if she knew what happened to them.

And Aneki always said that it was her nindo to deal with things like this herself, and one day she'd be the Hokage and they'd all have to grovel for forgiveness, but Aniki had said what Aneki didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

But it would hurt poopyhead jerks who deserved to be roasted and eaten, even though this wasn't the old days and they didn't do that anymore.

Well, the eating part anyway.

They learned fire jutsu first for good reason.

Good reasons like situations like this, when some uppity _civilian_ needed to be taught a lesson and the best way to do that was to paralyze them while you went around doing what it had said in the scroll Ran's daddy had shown her on Take Your Daughter To Work Day down at the police station. It was full of all sorts of good tricks for making it just look like an accident, and how to paralyze them for certain amounts of time so that they'd be able to escape without getting singed any more than the desired amount, although figuring out how fast fires would spread in civilian houses (which were built really stupidly), had taken a little figuring out.


	30. Customary

_As a thank-you to reviewers I sometimes award 'kiriban fics,' where the person who writes a certain review gets asked for a prompt, after seeing fanartists do this for hit count. Even now that the site tracks hit count, I'd rather reward reviewers than lurkers. After all, without feedback, how can we know what our readers like and thus what they want to see more of?_

_This one is dedicated to Mikan27lover, the 200th reviewer of this fic on fanfiction dot net. They asked for more with the Narucave pirate fleet. _

_Sorry for taking so long… I offered a kiriban to the 300th reviewer, but they haven't responded to the offer so far. If I don't hear from them, next kiriban will be at 400._

_I'm sorry that this chapter was so delayed – it was partially because as I think I've said before, I stopped watching Naruto at a certain point, so I didn't know many expanded universe characters that I could put in the pirate fleet. It _would _be a good dumping ground for filler people without bloodlines – the ones with bloodlines would be getting hit with 'Come to Konoha, thereby giving me more clan heads with seats on the council loyal to me who can thus help elect me next Hokage!' _

_I'm modeling Bay Country a bit on England's and Haiti's history, of course._

* * *

"Only if you plant merchants, they don't grow so good," the pirate explained as his cohorts finished loading half of the ship's cargo onto their own vessel. "Come back next year!"

_And this time, pay your taxes instead of bypassing Wave, _he thought to himself, adjusting the eyepatch he wore. The things really were amazingly practical: keeping one of his eyes in the dark all the time meant that when they went down onto the darkness of the ship's hold, there wasn't any moment of temporary blindness the defenders could use to gain the upper hand.

Half the cargo was the standard 'attempted tax evasion with swords' tax rate: they'd brought it on themselves by bypassing Wave's port and customs, then attempting to assault legally empowered customs agents in the course of their duties. When the carefully-damaged ship made it into the nearest port – Wave's – where they would have to pay the local shipyard for repairs, the locals would make it clear to them how they really should have stuck closer to the coast, and put into the port, because the pirates only attacked in deeper water… Yet still always within Wave's legal territorial waters, oddly enough.

Speaking of tax rates… he put his fingers to his lips and whistled. "Issei!"

"Have you heard the good word of Mother Amaterasu, bitch? Have you?" the small, bouncing sprite that only he could see let off its aggressive preaching to people who couldn't see it but could certainly hear the sermons and feel (and fear) its tiny blade and left the tied-up captives it was terrorizing on the other side of the deck. "Yeah, what?"

"Are we putting down the destruction of expensive clothing as an Asshole Tax surcharge?" he asked as he went back on board his own ship and ordered them to remove the grappling hooks and seperate from their prey.

Issei unrolled a huge scroll that seemingly came from nowhere – the Poncle clan of summon ani-vicious tiny bastards with swords who you'd better not call _animals_ had an affinity for writing.

Most of them, the ones who were out of their hidden village at least, lived in temple monastaries producing religious pamphlets and artwork. First Mate Issei did half of the pirates' paperwork and was also writing a comic book based on their adventures. "Yeah, Asshole Tax. I noted it down before I started letting him have it. Bastard called me a flea, so I cut him down to his underwear. What's the problem?"

"Just, you know, try to do stuff like that _before _we tie them up?"

"Bastard was talking trash, trying to act like a big guy for his cronies and get some face back after we kicked his ass. Trust me, he didn't have the guts to talk like that when he was actually fighting." Not when he thought he'd really get hurt for it.

Shinta frowned. "That isn't good."

"What isn't?"

"That they think they're safer as prisoners than with a weapon in their hands. Normally, it's not safe to be a pirate's prisoner. A lot of them kill all the victims so there's no one left to hire ninjas, or give descriptions or other information to the ninja their employers later hire. They definitely don't have trouble kicking them while they're down." Was word leaking out that they were technically privateers instead of pirates?

"Know a lot about pirates, do you?" Issei asked, jumping onto his shoulder.

A red eyebrow rose. "Well, yes, that's why I was hired."

Once upon a time, Bay Country had been a pirate haven, an island port defended by mountains. However, over time the increasingly wealthy pirates, aided by the ninja among their ranks, had grown wealthier and wealthier, aided by the (arrogant) policy of letting ships and crew leave alive, with enough money still aboard for them to make another voyage, which let them be harvested a second time. Eventually, one of the city's lords had institutionalized this policy, charging a protection tax for safety within their waters, and boats had sailed through Bay Country's waters whenever they could, since it meant they were safe from less civilized piracy.

Also, Half-Moon Port had booze. And hookers. And wealthy pirates with money to blow on nice things for their mansions. Those brave enough to dock there could be reasonably sure of making a killing instead of getting killed.

These days, Bay Country just had an extremely powerful navy that would blow your ship to shreds if you tried to evade taxes, and most of its income came from the lively trading center at its heart. And the tourism. Couldn't forget the tourism. The fact they were so dependent on ships from outside for the food to support their city, and thus so vulnerable to anything that disrupted trade, like, oh, war, had eventually led them to have an institutional dislike for all ninja except for the independent ones that knew their place and either provided bodyguards at affordable rates or hunted other ninja who dared act contrary to the interests of Bay Country.

Their native ninja had left centuries ago under good terms, given the island that was now Wave Country with the understanding that providing Bay Country with a safe port of call on the chaotic Shinobi Continent, whose governments were perpetually unstable due to the dangers of powerful individuals even now that the Uchiha Horde had settled down would make sure that Wave Country funneled trade that way until they got themselves properly set up.

They'd hoped that Whirlpool Village would exert something of a stabilizing influence on the ninja politics of the continent, until they got themselves too wrapped up in the landlubbers' internal struggles and shortly thereafter got themselves wiped out.

Bay Country had gotten rid of most of its ninja population to avoid an insurrection or any of the other very bad things that could have happened if the continent ninja rubbed off on their ninja too much, but most of them had left willingly in order to escape the crowded city and have vast lands, mansions and training grounds of their own.

Shinta was descended from some of the ninja that remained in Bay Country, and he'd been working at the Heritage Museum doing demonstrations of the ancient ninja techniques Bay Country's ancestors used in their piracy, back in the old, uncivilized days when he received a message about a consulting job.

He hadn't expected the consulting job to be establishing a _real _pirate fleet, or at least a privateer fleet, but reclaiming the homeland of his distant cousins, helping out an impoverished nation full of pitiful orphans and getting to do all of this for _real _had certainly appealed.

Back in Bay Country he'd just been a minor functionary too: oh, he got plenty of ooohs and aaaahs from the children, but his jutsu were primarily regarded as entertainment.

"Captain Uzumaki?"

Shinta stabbed the man who interrupted his thoughts in the back with two needles, inwardly frowning in disapproval. _If you're going to do a kill-and-replace, you should at least wait to get back to shore and case out the operation before attacking_.

And what kind of ninja that could do a henshin and replace one of his men, even one of his men who was silently asking for it by being an easy target who it was easily to get alone and knock overboard, would be fooled by such a simple genjutsu as the captain standing there in the stereotypical captain's pose while he was really inside the open door of the cabin, tallying up the loot?

An extremely arrogant ninja who thought he was immortal, even though he lived in a world full of other ninja who specialized in sneaky killing techniques. "Issei?" Shinta called as the man's flesh pushed out his needles. "I think this one's yours!" One hand signaled for the rest of the crew to stay back a moment before using a quick substitution jutsu, exchanging himself with some of the flotsam in the water in order to get the blood off his hands as fast as possible.

"Blood for the blood god!" the Jashin-worshipper roared.

"Glory for the sun goddess!" came the war cry of the tiny Inquisitor.

This was the third Jashin follower they'd encountered so far: was the church really that much on the rise again, or did they see a nascent pirate empire as something they should take for themselves, something they could turn into a means of indiscriminate slaughter of innocents, use to attack trade and civilization? At least this one wasn't much more powerful than the others: according to Issei anyone really god-touched should be able to see him. Would the church stop these testing probes whenever they did the research and realized what it meant that there was a poncle among the Wave Pirates, or step up their game.

This was something that needed to go in his report. After they fished up Raiju, who despite the name which advertised a lightning-weilder actually specialized in being very, incredibly good at playing dead.

All three reports: in addition to his current employeer, the museum eagerly awaited his articles on the state of modern piracy – this was a rare chance to do real research in their field.

And then, of course, he _was _ a citizen of Bay Country, and an Uzumaki making an alliance with the infamous Uchiha… Well, that bore watching. And watching the watchers – he was well aware that Issei wasn't the only one who had been asked to keep an eye on him, just in case he went to the continental ninja side of the chakra. And it certainly was appealing. He _was _an Uzumaki: the raw _chaos _of it all…

"Accept the truth and light and awesomeness of Mother Amaterasu into your heart, or I'll cut your black heathen heart out and expose it to the light of day!"

...Yeah. That.


	31. A Young Maiden's Body Count

_So, despite my worries about trying to force the humor, I figured I should perhaps post something just so you know that the fic isn't dead. It's just that the writer hasn't had any control over what it is that she writes. Not for years. Currently her brain is mostly on Evangelion (you may have noticed that the writer has an affinity for crack)._

_However, in the interests of not leaving people hanging for another six months:_

_I have this nagging feeling that there are some errors, but my internet sucks so I'm not in a position to load wiki pages and reread as much as I would like, and I can't get ahold of the person I normally ask to check canon for me. Would you please let me know if you spot any Naruto/fic continuity errors so I can fix/research tomorrow when I'm somewhere with better net? Other than the stuff that's a consequence of this AU, of course. There's a difference between 'over the top' exaggeration by way of Rule of Cool/Funny (eg. inflating a number) and 'that obviously wouldn't work because canon says blank,' and a lot's been published since I originally decided how this battle would end up._

* * *

Years of practice detecting when a kid was about to do something stupid and moving to intercept allowed Sasuke to almost teleport in order to grab the tiger cub his accountant had turned into by the scruff of the neck and retreat back to his branch.

Naruto whimpered up at him, and Sasuke was glad his bandage meant he didn't have to see the kitten's big eyes. He'd thought Sasuke was his friend! What was he doing, acting like a truant officer?

Sasuke gave him a good shake, because Naruto didn't have hands, which meant he'd lost most of his jutsu (Naruto wasn't a big fan of the breath jutsu: he'd rather shoot his mouth off than shoot with his mouth) and he'd been about to just leap into the arms of the enemy nin?

He frowned thoughtfully. On the one hand, he wanted to kill Danzo, and this ninja wasn't Danzo. It was also Sakura's turn. On the other hand, the ninja _was _fairly powerful, and Sasuke needed practice fighting experienced ninja with tricks he hadn't seen before. Which was, well, most tricks. The Uchiha Clan Jutsu Library contained a large percentage of ninja techniques and strategies, but studying it was beneath the dignity of a clan head. Not that Sasuke cared, but there also weren't enough hours in the day as it was.

If there was some time-space manipulation jutsu in there that would fix that, Sakura would have already used it. Well, no, she'd have made _Naruto _use it, since he was the one with the insane chakra. Sakura was just insane, not that insanity wouldn't also be necessary to perform a jutsu like that…

Sasuke might have thought that if there was a jutsu like that in the clan library then the clan would have performed it long ago, no matter how many inferior, non-Uchiha ninja had to be drained dry of their chakra in order to power it, but then he remembered right, the true ancient purpose of the clan was to be evil. Giving everyone more time to get things done was something _nice _people did, even if not having more time in the day themselves would also have made the Uchiha, especially the Uchiha _parents, _suffer.

Nice people were handy to have around, weren't they? Speaking of which, he needed to get his accountant turned back into a human, no matter how cute a man-eating tiger kitten undoubtedly was.

Although turning him back halfway, resulting in a tiger catgirl with fluffy wings, was an… interesting thought, hybrids like that weren't fertile, and there would go Sasuke's plan to breed Naruto and Hinata to create the seed stock for a clan bloodline specializing in Niceness no Jutsu. As head of the clan he had to think of the future, after all. It wasn't just a matter of safeguarding the strength of the Uchiha bloodline, he also had to think of their strategic position and their acquisition of and control over vital resources. As much as he wished he could get his hands on large, bouncy… as much as he wished he could get his hands on Naruto's chakra supply and breed it into the Uchiha line (giving them fucking unfair chakra supplies in addition to a downright evil bloodline limit), putting him out to stud would ensure the Uchiha Clan's access to trustworthy accountants and excellent babysitters for generations to come. The _Senju_ might allow priceless abilities like this to go to waste, but if Sasuke wasted this opportunity, he would live to see his grandchildren but not much past that, since surely his and Sakura's children would be intelligent enough to realize why their parents had it so much easier than they would. They'd murder him in his sleep if he was the reason they couldn't dump their kids on someone trustworthy so they could have some alone time, and he'd deserve it.

Wait… It wasn't killing intent he detected from the enemy nin, it was _acquisitive _intent.

Sakura easily spotted Sasuke's shift from contemplation of offense to going on the defensive, ready to retreat with the incapacitated Naruto. Good: it was her turn. She knew that Sasuke needed to fight powerful ninja, both for practice and to acquire the reputation he'd need to be an effective head of the Uchiha Clan, but Sakura didn't _have _a clan. She hadn't been born into a reputation. She'd need to make her own reputation, and fast, because as soon as people found out that Hinata was Naruto's fiancée instead of Sasuke's, it would be open season on Sasuke. Kuniochi were _ninja_: Sakura would be insulted if none of them tried to assassinate her. It would mean they thought she was so weak and insignificant she wasn't even worth taking seriously as competition.

As much as it made her fists clench to think of not getting any assassination attempts, of Sasuke's fan club still thinking of her as the forehead girl, clearly just a servant instead of Sasuke's girlfriend, for _everyone _who thought Sasuke was hot to try to assassinate her would almost be worse.

She'd be too busy to get any work done on her illegal bloodline experiments!

…Oh, and she might die. Or one of them might find Sakura's experiments while tracking her and waiting for the time to strike and decide to eliminate her from the competition by reporting her to the Hokage instead of a frontal assault.

Wait a minute.

Illegal bloodline experiments.

Sakura's jaw dropped. She clasped her hands to her chest and let herself squee. "Orochimaru!" She continued, "I'm such a fan of your work!" Registered as such, in fact: She'd infiltrated the remnants of his official fanclub and spy organization since Sasuke had wanted to find out if there were any more like Mizuki in there who might go after _his _minion. Partially it was proof that she could be useful to Sasuke, but mostly it was because they had secret copies of the experimental data seized by the Hokage when they discovered his experiments. "You revolutionized the study of bloodline limits!" By discovering new ways of studying them via disposable subjects as opposed to valuable carriers that would be missed.

"Wow," she said, sighing dreamily. "It's such an honor to meet you in person. I've read all of your papers, the way you really _apply _science to the acquisition of power and immortality, the spirit of ruthless inquiry, it's so admirable! I can't believe they exiled you! You're absolutely right, that scientific advancement can't afford to be held back by petty concerns like the value of human life or the 'need' for transparency, outdated civilian notions that we ninja ignore every day in the service of clients, when clearly knowledge and power are far more important than _money_! I just can't believe Konoha's hypocrisy, just throwing away research that would have helped all her ninja, especially clanless students! I mean, what about equality? What about preserving the lives of our comrades?"

Attempt to create an elegant persona utterly forgotten, she bounced up and down on her branch. "You're such an inspiration to all of us! Well, me and my test subjects," she continued to babble, chakra going haywire as her normally perfect control was utterly lost along with her composure.

She just went on and on and Sasuke didn't need to see Orochimaru's face to know what had to be going through his head right now. He had to wince in sympathy, even though sympathy wasn't exactly proper for an Uchiha.

Oh Yami no, not a _fangirl_.

…Wait, had there been something in that babble his brain was trying to tune out in self defense about _test subjects_? Was Sakura performing unethical experiments? Well, of course she was, but was she performing unethical experiments he didn't know about? Because the test subjects he did know about weren't smart enough to have an opinion on Orochimaru one way or another.

Of _course _she was, he realized. Sasuke wouldn't have picked her if she wasn't like that. He couldn't invite someone with _ethics _into the Uchiha clan, his cousins would eat her alive.

Well, there was Hinata, but Hinata kept them too stuffed with rice balls and blood-flavored ramen for them to consider putting Hyuuga on the menu, ancestry or no ancestry.

Hinata was a fangirl, but she was a Naruto fangirl, which at least meant she had taste. Sakura's Sasuke fangirlness had decreased recently, which he'd thought was a sign she was growing up.

That was what she'd _wanted _him to think, he now realized.

Once upon a time, Orochimaru too had been a young prodigy whose disinterest in girls made him stand out among all his classmates who would have regarded a young kuniochi's inexperienced affections as a means of getting into her pants. That made him a safe target as well as a hot, smart one.

Even though that was decades ago, ingrained muscle memory forced Orochimaru to assume a specific guard position, reflex as trained as any kata insisting that Sakura was about to tackle him, put her hands all over him and go through his pockets in case he was carrying anything that might hint at possible emotional vulnerabilities or recent top-secret research.

He'd sensed that her chakra control was better than most of Konoha's academy students before he struck, but 'better than' was still far from _good_. Her semblance of maturity had cracked to reveal a typical fangirl center.

Oh Yami, not _this _again, went Orochimaru's inner child, remembering the ridiculous double standard (Amaterasu help anyone who groped _Tsunade_, especially someone her own age and the opposite sex, but when the victim was a _boy)_ and that idiot Jiraya sulking and being jealous, as though Orochimaru should be _happy _about having his lunch money stolen every damn day so various heiresses could fight over who got to feed him their inexpertly cooked box lunches while he was trying to study, dammit.

That was when the fifty-seven D-rank jutsu timed to activate near simultaneously and overload his defenses by first causing him to defend against Sakura's primary element and then hit the weakness of the element that one was weak to, since of _course_ Orochimaru would react instantly struck the ninja, the tree he stood on and the air he was probably breathing.

"I have Orochimaru's blood in my hair. I have Orochimaru's blood spattered all over me," Sakura said raptly as Sasuke grabbed her with the hand that wasn't holding Naruto and got the hell out of there. "I am _never washing this dress_."

Not when that would destroy valuable DNA samples.

"You replaced Kiba's scroll with a fake?" Since of course they wouldn't give the real scroll to Hinata, not when her fiancé was on another team.

She nodded, then said, "Yes."

"I felt the nod," he told her.

Good: Hinata and Kiba could be counted on to take the unconscious Shino and head in the opposite direction with the scroll Sasuke had taken from Kabuto. It was a double of theirs anyway: he had to wonder whether it was really random chance that Hinata's team had the scroll he needed, or someone was expecting him to demand it from her, since he was an Uchiha, and was hoping that would cause a rift with the Hyuuga. "Take Naruto," he ordered, depositing her on a branch and forming the snake seal.

"Good, so you _didn't _think you could get away fr-" was all Orochimaru had time to say before he was run over by several tons of hung-over tanuki, Gaara's gear and sleeping bag (stuffed with snoring Gaara) tied around its neck like a panda-themed charm bracelet.

"Stop. Wasting. Booze," growled the demon, glaring at the stream of heavenly sake.

Sasuke redirected the stream into its mouth. "Ten more shots if you carry us to the tower."

Well, Orochimaru couldn't attack Sasuke now, much less do something that would disrupt the ninja's chakra or knock him out, or else he'd piss off one of the components of his invasion plan.

_How had that fa-that girl cast all those jutsu. _

How she knew that many was obvious: the Uchiha Clan Library. The discipline to learn that many jutsu was rare, but she was a _fangirl_: the capacity for obsession was clearly there, and a true fangirl would spend countless hours studying their target. If she'd managed to refocus her obsession from the Uchiha to his library, and also to Orochimaru, and thence to his research? It wasn't as though hormones weren't the reason countless male ninja tried to get stronger, so they could impress others with their strength.

Why she'd used a variety like that was also obvious: a single type of energy was a single type of energy. Relying on one jutsu had killed plenty of ninja. When she performed those jutsu was also obvious: that hadn't been chaos in her chakra at all, just chakra being quickly molded into several different patterns, with the elements staggered so she didn't draw enough chakra of one elemental type at any given moment for him to realize that she was powering a jutsu she seriously expected to work on him. Especially when she knew he was Orochimaru, and thus no weak, genin jutsu could touch him. He was expecting a physical attack, an A rank, or nothing.

Using jutsu with only partial seals and clasping her hands like that had hidden a few of her fingers from him, but the mental focus that would take! She'd been so focused, so _obnoxiously _focused on him that there shouldn't have been another thought in her head…

Deliberately induced multiple personality disorder? He'd experimented with that, but to think a genin, and a Konoha genin at that, would use it against him?

Screw the Uchiha, he thought, not for the first time.

He would need a stopgap, but after that? He found his next host body. A few more years to finish memorizing the Uchiha Jutsu Library would be in order, but then that brain would be his, along with her jutsu knowledge, and her little Uchiha too!


	32. Valuable Life Skills

_I don't own a certain book, either. 'A Wizard's Staff Has A Knob On The End' is from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, or at least that's where I encountered it._

* * *

"It's an insult!" Naruto stamped his foot, looking really pissed. "Putting the Uchiha clan head against a one trick pony like that?"

"The matches were randomly generated," Hinata pointed out shyly.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura snorted simultaneously.

"Oh, thanks for reminding me, Hinata!" Naruto snapped his fingers as he realized he needed to find out who put Hinata up against Neji and get some creative revenge for making her have to fight her own family. Nobody should have to do that! That would be like having to fight Sasuke! He'd definitely make them pay for making Hinata do that!

Unless it was Dango-bastard, since Sasuke had eternal dibs on him. Well, maybe he'd let Naruto do something _if _it was creative enough.

"That aside," Sasuke said, "I'm sure that was the idea. Eliminating someone who only got this far because of their teammates before their weakness compared to the rest of us could disgrace their village," in front of potential paying customers in the arena, "and ensuring I wouldn't take any injuries that might hamper my performance."

"Oh, right," Naruto realized. Sasuke would be representing the Uchiha clan out there, the first time most of these people had seen a Uchiha in years. He needed to uphold the clan's legendary reputation, which contributed to people's idea of Konoha's strength. "But they could at least have given you a warm-up!"

"That's what _sparring_ is for." Sasuke would have given him a look if it weren't for the blindfold. What was with Naruto thinking there was some value in giving weak opponents the chance to stab him, even if Naruto was a proper ninja now and didn't believe in 'fair fights.' Some kind of rooting for the underdog, even though now Naruto was a Uchiha, and thus by definition not the underdog? "More importantly, why is Konoha entering so many clan heirs in this year's Chunin Exams? I'm aware of the demographics," that most of his peers were around the same age thanks to the Kyuubi attack, even if Itachi had been older, "but it's almost as though someone is trying to remind the world that we have clans. Or put the focus on our possession of clans." Hinata and Shikamaru were strong enough to be Chunin, but Naruto had just handed Kiba his ass and what was with the Aburame heir feinting off a tree branch like that?

Sasuke would be the first to admit that Harem no Jutsu was a potent technique, but even if that was the first 'public' showing of Reverse Harem no Jutsu, everyone in Konoha should know that Naruto had weaponized sex appeal by now, and they were ninja. Someone planning to watch Naruto in combat against a strange enemy ninja should assume that Naruto would pull out all the stops and use that technique.

Sure, a lot of people went out of their way to watch Naruto's battles because of Harem no Jutsu and its effects, but Shino was in the _Chunin Exams_, and he was representing his clan. Civilians might be able to miss a day of work thanks to the blood loss from exposure to bounc-to Harem no Jutsu, but the people administering this exam would expect better of ninja.

Damn it… he'd thought that having two clan heirs on her team would keep the dead weight from dragging down Hinata. Well, at least she'd passed the Forest of Death despite them, but if she didn't pass this year? Sasuke would have to do something to make sure they didn't make her fail the next Chunin Exam, or rather, "Naruto? Hinata's teammates need a little toughening up."

"On it!" Naruto declared, forming the handseals for Kage Bunshin.

The door to Sasuke's private rooms slid open and Gaara stumbled through, rubbing his eyes. They heard a tiny yawn, and Hinata and Sakura had to suppress awwws. Naruto had to suppress the urge to jump on him as a form of hello, because a fellow demon vessel!

Man, though, he needed to get those tiger instincts out of his system. He'd popped right back after the pervy hermit guy removed the seal, but suppressing the urge to pounce on Kiba and his dog during their match had totally put him off his game. Although it was cool that the urge to pounce on humans only happened when they were looking away from him. He'd known that tigers were awesome because they had orange, but who knew they were so ninja? Well, it weren't like there were a lot of animals powerful _and _smart enough to hunt humans.

Sasuke was trying to make sense of what he was looking at. He could see that Gaara was wearing some kind of new outfit, with some seal work sewn in. It had clearly been a rush job, and Haku was far from a master yet, but the smell of fur, and Sasuke could see seals extending out from Gaara's head a little… "Are those _panda footie pajamas_?" He asked, remembering the outfits some of the Uchibis had clamored for. Lions and man-eating tigers and bears!

"Yep!" Naruto said happily.

"Give Haku a raise again," Sasuke said, because he needed Haku too happy where he was to be lured away by other offers, although Sasuke certainly didn't mind the occasional commission that would increase Haku's prestige. It was hard to find a good new tailor for your clan when the Hokage had the last one disappeared, especially when this meant designing for the demon vessel.

So Haku's first effort for another demon vessel had been panda footie pajamas, for Gaara to wear while wandering around blinking the sleepiness out of his eyes? Never being allowed to go to sleep meant Gaara had no idea of how to wake himself up once he did regain consciousness.

"Was he wearing them when he fought Lee?" Sasuke wanted to know.

"It was hard enough for Lee to even try to hit him as it was," Sakura told him. Good Guy Lee, attacking a sleepy little kid? Kids did their growing in their sleep, so being sleep-deprived for years meant Gaara was a teeny little thing for their age.

"Yes," Sasuke said, nodding. Exactly.

"And damage an outfit that cute?" This was at least A-class cuteness here! Sakura blinked. "I almost said it would have been unfair for Gaara to wear this." She shook her head. "Against Lee, anyway. Damn, I guess I haven't managed to get rid of all those civilian attitudes." Fairness, what was what? "Or maybe it's just that I'm prejudiced in Lee's favor." He wasn't from a clan either: he'd had to work hard to get where he was, even if while she used the muscle in her head he used the rest of them.

Which did result in a nice body, although ugh, that green jumpsuit! It was an offense to the eyes, you just wanted to tear it off him…

…wait a minute.

"I wonder if he's related to Haku?" Sakura found herself wondering. "Or maybe Gai is." Even if they came at clothing from the complete opposite direction. No, that didn't explain the hair.

"We really need to do something about his chakra coils, then!" Naruto said excitedly. "I bet Tsunade could do it." Looking at Sakura, he frowned. "Don't you think so?"

She looked away guiltily, twiddling her thumbs. "I'm sorry, Naruto, but I looked over the ancient clan paperwork matriarchs are supposed to sign, and I'm going to be contractually obligated to hate the Senju." As much as she hated the thought of turning in her badge and retiring as Vice-President of the Tsunade Fan Club. Well, at least Ten-Ten would probably give the position to Naruto.

Naruto snorted. Pish, was that all? "You should have come to me about that right away. Don't worry, I'll take care of that." And all pre-existing versions of the documents. Having an army of forgers was handy sometimes.

Sasuke smiled slightly, sipping his tea and barely making an effort to pretend he hadn't heard that conversation. Minions with initiative were such handy things. He was a busy genin, soon to be a chunin: tradition took a distant second place to having stuff be _not his problem_.

Gaara tugged at his arm. "What is it?" Sasuke asked.

"My body is still exhausted," since it had years of growing, adapting and dreaming to catch up on. Dreaming was key to maturing and brain development: what was Suna thinking, letting a demon vessel go without it? Well, they had wanted a psychotic attack dog, but even so. "But the discomfort is keeping me awake." He was literally too tired to sleep. Sasuke winced, knowing the feeling. "How do I fall asleep?"

Sasuke patted him on the back, because man, had he ever come to the right person. "We'll start with a bedtime story." He didn't need to remove his blindfold to be sure that he was opening the Eight Swords School of Child-Rearing's guide book (never go home without it) to the right page: he had _Go the Fuck To Sleep _bookmarked. As for needing to read it? Ha, he had it memorized _and_ could do eight different voices.

There was nothing worse than a horde of cranky little demons.

* * *

"Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh!"

Tsunade winded. "You." She'd hoped to fix Yamato and get out with minimal hassle. Not going to happen now, this brat was made of hassle.

"You're in Konoha!" the blond brat (or was it another clone?) exclaimed, jumping up and down. "Now you have to train me!"

Folding her arms, she gave him a long and steady look. Have to? She didn't have to do anything.

"Hold on a second," he said, then the clone dispersed itself.

Did he seriously think he was going to wait? Tsunade immediately turned around and headed back to the hotel. At least the horde of visitors here for the Chunin exams should make it hard for him to find her, since she wasn't going anywhere near the Senju estates.

Only to find her way barred by grinning Blond Brat clones. With barrels on their heads?

As they put the barrels down on the ground, she saw that they were filled with water. Or wait, not water.

One of them scooped a tankard into one of the barrels and handed it to her, still grinning.

The blond brat was associated with the Uchiha clan: if she wasn't the greatest medic nin of the world, she wouldn't have dared take a sip no matter _how _good it smelled.

Or a second sip.

And she certainly would have been able to resist chugging it.

She ignored the blond brats' clapping and whistling: she was only smiling because it was that damn good. So, he'd broken into the Uchiha Clan reserves to try to bribe her now?

"I'll promise you a lifetime supply of Eight Purification Sake if you stay in Konoha to teach me!"

"Not happening." Wait, was this really Eight Purification Sake?

The sake which, after one sip, made all other sake taste like trash?! _Goddammit_, she was a Senju! She should know better than to accept Uchiha bearing gifts! Her ancestors must be headdesking in their graves!

(And indeed, at that moment Orochimaru's servants heard pounding noises coming from two certain, very tightly secured, coffins.)

"_Or_," he continued, having already anticipated her refusal, "if you leave your apprentice in Konoha to train me! Once I've mastered every technique she has, she can go back to you, complete her training and then teach me!"

The holy elixir, Eight Purification Sake. Without having to go to Konoha. But Shizune would have to pay the price for her selfishness… "No," Tsunade said, with the last of her willpower. After this, how could she drown her sorrows and the brain cells which contained certain memories in lesser alcohol? Would she lose her ability to perform medic jutsu at all, the medic jutsu that hadn't saved her loved ones?

"Oh," she heard a soft voice behind her. "Oh, Tsunade… You really do care!"

As hearts rose up from Shizune, "Then train me for the Chunin Exams!" Naruto declared, striking a Good Gai pose.

Ammy pushed herself up out of one of the barrels long enough to paint a sunset behind him.

* * *

"Gamabunta may have insisted that I give you a chance to sign the toad summoning scroll," Jiraya told Sasuke, "but first there are certain rituals that must be observed!"

Like getting the prospective signer drunk so their mentor could get enough blackmail material on them to make sure they never misused the power of the toad scroll.

* * *

"So." Kakashi said, smiling at Sakura from behind his mask as the strains of "A Sage's Staff Has A Knob On The End" (knob on the end, knob on the end) sung in two-part disharmony rose from behind the Uchiha Compound's wall.

"So." Sakura stood there, alone and disgruntled. She understood why Naruto hadn't made her part of his deal with Tsunade (a true fan's loyalty shouldn't waver like that, and what was Sakura's intelligence good for, if altering the documents hadn't occurred to her), but now here she was. With Kakashi.

"I am your teacher, you know," he reminded her.

"Yes," technically. Her eyes asked what exactly Kakashi had to teach her.

She knew that was stupid: he was a jounin, but then her teammates were being trained, or debauched in Sasuke's case, by two of the sannin. Kakashi might be infamous, but he wasn't legendary, although was The Legendary Pervert really _that _much better than the Notorious Pervert?

"I can teach you to get away with absolutely anything, down to and including reading porn in public," he told her.

Sakura considered that. Reading porn in public wasn't impressive: she'd been doing it for years, along with most of the female ninja in her class. It said something about the intelligence levels of male ninja that they seriously believed people read romance novels for the plots. On top of that, she already knew how to get away with a lot, up to and including murder (the technique was called Be An Uchiha no Jutsu), but then again her skills were only chunin level at most, and ordinary jounin skills plus Teacher's Pet no Jutsu hadn't saved her idol. "Does this include performing illegal and unethical procedures on human subjects?" she wondered. "That may or may not involve jealously guarded bloodlines."

"How do you think I got my eye?" even though the Uchiha clan wanted to keep the utterly broken Sharingan for itself?

"Sold."

* * *

"Blood blood blood blood, blood blood blood blood, bloodbloodbloodblood!" the chant came from the section of the arena where the Uchibis were sitting, along with Konohamaru and his friends, holding signs saying, "Beat them up, Aniki!" and "Come on, throw us a bone!"

"Uchiha?" the Kazekage asked.

"Uchiha," the Hokage sighed. "Is that what I think it is?"

"The legendary Eight Purification Sake?" the Kazekage nodded.

Why did _he_ have some, the Hokage wondered. He was the head of Konoha, and the damn Uchiha certainly hadn't come to give him any of the drinks that clan made him need.

"I put my daughter on a long-term mission in exchange for annual shipments."

The Hokage rolled his eyes under the hat. He'd sold his daughter into slavery _to the Uchiha_ for booze? The other villages might mock 'goody-two-shoes Konoha' all they liked, but this kind of thing was why no matter how brainwashed they might try to make them, their ninja would never be loyal, why they lost so many ninja. Often to Konoha. Only an idiot would be loyal to a place that wasn't loyal to them in return.

Underneath the Underneath helped too, of course.

The Kazekage was utterly unconcerned by the old man's air of disapproval. She wasn't Orochimaru's daughter, after all. Nor was it his liver that he'd be ruining.

He was still thinking 'screw the Uchiha,' but he'd made a mental note to leave him intact enough that he could still perform the sake-summoning jutsu afterwards.


End file.
